


Atom's Glow

by WulfenOne



Series: Steel Reign [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternative Perspective, F/F, Femslash, Marriage Proposal, Romance, Spoilers for Far Harbor, Suicidal Thoughts, Vaginal Fingering, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:04:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7861069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WulfenOne/pseuds/WulfenOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The peace of the Commonwealth is threatened when the Children of Atom mobilise for holy war. Caught in the middle, Sole Survivor Rachel Adams and Piper Wright must find a way to defuse the situation before chaos reigns once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Drums Of War

Rachel Adams blinked herself awake, rubbing her green eyes blearily before groping for the Pip-Boy she had laid on the bedside table. Glancing at its glowing green display screen, she saw that it was almost nine in the morning, which was a little earlier than she’d hoped for considering that she had only gone to sleep a few hours beforehand, after returning home from an overly-long scavenger hunt which had only resulted in a few bags of stringy mole-rat meat and some spare scraps of metal. Not exactly worth the amount of effort she’d put into it, but she supposed she had to take what she could get.

“Wakey-wakey, Blue,” came an amused voice. Standing in the doorway of the bedroom was the Commonwealth’s most intrepid (and at this point possibly only) reporter, Piper Wright. “Got your morning pick-me-up ready and waiting right here, doll-face.” She offered Rachel one of the two mugs she was carrying, and Rachel dragged herself off the bed and took the mug gladly. She knew exactly what it was - cheap, pungent coffee that tasted like it had been roasted in a crematorium - but she never began her day without it (or at least she did whenever they could find a stash of it, anyway). These days any kind of mundane ritual was something to be treasured.

“Thank you,” she said gratefully before she took a sip and the ashen, bitter flavour crossed her tongue. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

Piper smiled, and kissed Rachel on the lips. “You’re welcome. Good morning to you too.”

“So what do you feel like doing today?”

Piper sighed, suddenly looking a little disappointed. “Yeah… about that - I just ran into Preston, and he told me to tell you he needs to speak to you about something whenever you’re up and about.”

“Wow, you sure know how to make a girl feel special, Pipes,” Rachel laughed. “Thanks anyway - I’ll talk to him after I’ve washed up. Whatever it is, though, I’m sure I won’t like it.”

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown, huh?” Piper said. “Just remember, you agreed to all of this, so you have nobody to blame but yourself, Blue.”

“I know, I know,” Rachel replied, sensing defeat. “I made my bed and now I have to lie in it.” She sighed. “It’s just… sometimes I wish that those goddamn Super Mutants would take a day off once in a while, you know?”

“Well, you know what they say - time and Super Mutants wait for no man. Better get out there… General,” Piper said with a lopsided smile.

“You know, it’s weird enough when Preston calls me that,” Rachel replied, pursing her lips. “When you say it, it’s just uncomfortable.”

“Mission accomplished,” Piper said, before she pointed at the door. “Now finish your coffee, stop stalling, and be the leader I know you are.”

“Okay, okay, I know when I’m beaten,” Rachel said with a shrug. Getting up off the bed, she swigged the last of her coffee down in one gulp, quickly dressed herself in a t-shirt and jeans and clipped her Pip-Boy closed around her left forearm, then made her way into the bathroom and rubbed the condensation off the cracked mirror so she could make herself look at least presentable for the day. She rinsed her hands in the basin full of collected rain-water and then ran them through her short, jet-black hair so that it felt a little less chaotic, tucking most of it behind her ears and leaving two cheek-length bangs.

 _Time to put your game face on,_ she thought. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door of her house and headed out into the sunlight. It was harsher than she had initially thought, with only a sparse covering of cloud to obscure it. Squinting until her eyes had adjusted, she glanced over to where she heard Preston Garvey’s voice as he directed some of his Minutemen towards the turret-ringed garrison posts at the edge of the settlement, and then headed towards him, calling out his name as she did so. When she had got close enough, Preston tipped his hat to her respectfully and greeted her with a simple “Good morning, General.”

“Hey, Preston,” Rachel replied, still trying to blink away the sunlight a little. “Piper tells me you have something to talk to me about?”

“Afraid so, General,” Preston said, “and it’s not good news. Some of our scouts found some pretty scary stuff in at least three ruined settlements to the north.” He reached into his knapsack and then held out his hand. Clutched in it was a bloody, tattered pennant with a crudely-embroidered emblem on it, which Rachel recognised as the symbol of the Children of Atom.

“The Children of Atom? What could they have been doing there?” she asked.

“We’re not sure,” Preston said. “The settlements were picked clean of anything useful and we found a lot of melted radiation weapons, but we didn’t see any bodies. Either the Children were really thorough in policing up the casualties, or they took those settlers alive.” He shuddered. “Whatever they did, this can’t be a coincidence - it seems like a coordinated attack, and the Children aren’t exactly known for their coordination. This is uncharted territory, and I’m not sure I like it.”

“Me neither,” Rachel said, as an all-too-familiar ache settled triumphantly at the base of her skull, “but I think I need to speak with Elder Maxson about this.”

“Maxson?” Preston raised an eyebrow. “What could he have to say?”

“It’s not so much what he has to _say_ as what he might _do_ ,” Rachel explained. “If this is what I think it is, then I need to make sure Maxson doesn’t deploy any Brotherhood soldiers just yet - or worse, let Liberty Prime loose again. The last thing the Commonwealth needs right now is another war.” She paused. “I’ll need some time to do some repairs on my power armour, though. Can’t be visiting my commanding officer without looking my best, right?”

“I guess I can’t argue with that,” Preston admitted with a half-smile. “I know I always try to keep my jacket looking its best just to impress my general.”

Rachel laughed despite herself. “As you should, soldier. I’ll see you later.” With that, she turned on her heel and headed back to her and Piper’s house, her mind bubbling over with ideas of what she could possibly say to Maxson that would avert disaster. After the way that the Brotherhood had cracked open the Institute and then disembowelled it so ruthlessly that nothing was left but a smoking crater, she had no doubts whatsoever that they would be equally merciless towards any military forces other than their own - even if that military force was composed simply of crazed, emaciated humans clad only in ragged, dirty robes and face-paint, wielding nothing but rusty blades and cobbled-together, poorly-maintained weaponry. Then again, having seen how the Children had terrorised Far Harbor just with their mere presence, she supposed they shouldn’t be taken lightly either. One thing was for sure, though: she would need to speak with High Confessor Tektus too. DiMA’s synth puppet or not, he had to know something about this.

 _This is going to be fun,_ she thought sourly as she pushed open her house’s rickety wooden front door.

The sight that greeted her when she walked through the doorway was oddly comforting in its familiarity. As often happened in the mornings, Nat and Shaun were fighting over the contents of the last jug of fresh brahmin milk.

“Mom! Nat won’t let me have the milk!” Shaun cried. “She took it and now she won’t give it back!”

“I need it more than you!” Nat snorted. “You haven’t even poured out your breakfast yet! I have!” She pointed to her bowl, which was already full almost to the brim with Sugar Bombs. “See?” She looked up at Rachel, clearly hoping that she would side with her. Rachel shrugged.

“Nat’s got a point, Shaun,” she said. “You’ll have to wait until Auntie Cait does some more milking - she shouldn’t be too long now.”

“But Mom -“

“No more arguments, please,” Rachel snapped, cutting Shaun off mid-sentence. “Now say sorry to your sister.”

“Sorry, Nat,” Shaun mumbled, a sullen glower settling across his face in defeat.

“So she can hear you, Shaun,” Rachel chided him sternly. Clearly stung by her scolding, Shaun repeated his apology, this time in a more audible voice. When he had done so Rachel continued “Good boy. Now I don’t want to hear another word about this, is that clear?” Shaun opened his mouth as if he wanted to press the issue, but Rachel held up her hand to silence him. “Not. One. Word. Are we clear?” Shaun’s mouth snapped shut and he sank down in his seat, his expression as dark as an overcast sky, while Nat happily began tucking into her breakfast. Rachel resolved to make it up to him later, perhaps by taking him fishing or hunting. She still had a few tricks up her sleeve that Nate had taught her when the rationing started to pinch - being able to catch their own food helped them survive - thrive, even - and kept their larder more stocked than their neighbours. She knew how to construct a sturdy snare and find the right bait for the right fish, she knew how to gut and clean a carcass, and she knew how to determine what the best parts of an animal were - and it was those things she wanted to pass on to her children more than just weapons training and hand-to-hand combat practice. She’d have plenty of opportunities for the latter two things, after all.

Heading back towards her and Piper’s room, she knocked gently on the door. “Hey, Pipes? You decent in there?”

“As much as I can be,” Piper replied. “Come on in.” When Rachel had closed the door behind her, Piper finished pulling her t-shirt down over her pale stomach and continued “So what did Preston have to say?”

Rachel took a deep breath. “The Children of Atom are on the move,” she said. “Preston thinks they’re massing for war.”

The colour drained from Piper’s face almost instantly and she covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, God.”

“That’s what I thought you might say. I need to go visit Elder Maxson at the airport - maybe we can shut this down before anybody gets seriously hurt.”

“Still optimistic, even after all this time?” Piper said, one corner of her mouth tugging itself upwards in spite of the gravity of the situation. She brushed one hand briefly against Rachel’s cheek, her almost imperceptibly-soft touch making Rachel’s skin tingle. “That’s my Blue.” She paused suddenly, a flash of inspiration crossing her face. “Wait, what about High Confessor Tektus? Shouldn’t he be the first person you talk to?”

“Confessor Tektus is next on the list,” Rachel assured her. “I need to make sure the giant robot at Boston Airport doesn’t go stomping across the Commonwealth again first.”

Piper raised her eyebrows. “Good point.” She aimed a thumb at the door. “I’ll leave you to get ready. Come find me when you want to head out, okay?”

Rachel smiled. “I’ll see you in a little while, Pipes. We’ll save the day together, I promise.”

Piper smiled briefly in response, then turned on her heel and walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her. When Rachel was sure Piper was gone, she crossed the room to the closet and unhooked her Brotherhood uniform from its hanger. Stripping down to her underwear she rubbed the Brotherhood tattoo on her shoulder briefly, like it was some kind of talisman, before she put on the uniform and zipped it closed. Reaching into the closet again she picked up her black military cap and placed it squarely on her head at just the right angle, and then she reached onto another shelf and closed her hand around a small box. She drew it out of the closet and opened it. Inside was a small engagement ring that she had managed to scavenge from the body of a dead raider months ago - luckily the raider had been vain enough to leave the jewels in place rather than pawning them for chems or alcohol, so the ring was still relatively intact. She’d been wanting to find the right moment to get down on one knee for Piper for a while, but she had never quite worked up the courage to make the moment happen. Often she wondered how Nate had managed to be brave enough to do the same for her back when he was barely out of his teens (or so it seemed at the time, considering how babyfaced he’d been before the war), and it confounded her every single time - but at the same time it gave her the incentive to keep trying, because Piper was the person she’d been waiting for ever since she had crawled out of her icebox two years beforehand.

 _Guess I’ll have to wait a little longer,_ she thought bitterly, before she closed the box, put it in her pocket and walked out of her bedroom. _Time to go to war._


	2. Cry Havoc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Rachel visit the Prydwen in order to update Elder Maxson on the situation, and to ask him for his blessing to engage the Children of Atom without the might of the Brotherhood behind them.

   The _Prydwen_ ’s massive bulk never failed to make the hairs on the back of Rachel’s neck stand on end, even though she had been aboard the mighty airship so many times before. Its intimidating presence above Boston's airport had been muted somewhat by the addition of Liberty Prime, of course, but the ship nevertheless still effectively represented the mailed fist of the Brotherhood forces in the Commonwealth. She sat back in the seat of the Vertibird carrying her and Piper towards it, trying to block out the sound of the door gunner ruthlessly wiping out a stray pack of feral ghouls before they wandered too close to the airport entrance. It was necessary for the safety of her brothers and sisters, she knew, but that didn’t make it any easier to endure within the tight confines of the ship, even with the added protection of the noise-dampening hardware built into the helmet of her power armour.

   She was glad when the gunfire finally stopped and the Vertibird began its final approach towards the Prydwen’s flight deck. When the ship had secured itself into its moorings, she hopped out as quickly as she could, her ears still ringing momentarily. “Welcome aboard, ma’am,” one of the flight crew said almost in awe as she thumped her chest in salute and then snapped to attention. “Elder Maxson is waiting for you.”

   “Thank you, soldier,” Rachel replied, returning the crew member’s salute automatically. “Carry on.”

   “Yes, ma’am - thank you, ma’am,” the woman said, before grabbing her tools and scurrying towards the docked Vertibird’s tail section.

   When the woman was out of earshot, Piper said “You really do enjoy being in charge, don't you?”

   “Being able to tell people what to do does have its benefits sometimes, it’s true,” Rachel chuckled. “Come on, we have a meeting to get to - don’t want to keep Maxson waiting any longer than he already has…”

***

   As usual, they found Elder Maxson standing in the forward section of the command deck, his hands clasped firmly behind his back as he looked out over the Commonwealth. When he heard them approach, he turned his head slightly so that he was glancing at them through the corner of his right eye, the jagged scar that bisected that side of his face just about visible. “Sentinel,” he said respectfully, before he turned around fully and met Rachel’s gaze head-on as he saluted her. “I would say it’s a pleasure to see you, but Lancer-Captain Kells informs me that this is not a social visit. You have intelligence that needs to be brought to my attention, correct?”

   “Yes, Elder,” Rachel replied, after returning his salute. “My Minutemen have uncovered evidence that the Children of Atom could be preparing for a large-scale invasion of the Commonwealth - they destroyed at least three settlements to the north and didn’t leave anything useful behind, including the settlers. My lieutenant has all of his men on high alert and they’re ready to assist us if necessary.”

   Maxson snorted derisively. “You know as well as I do that those men would be no help whatsoever without extensive radiation-shielding - you’ve seen first-hand the effect the Children’s weaponry has on unprotected human flesh, as have I.” He drew up the right sleeve of his battle-coat to reveal a large, puckered scar covering almost his entire forearm. “The skin boiled right down to the bone. If I had not had a field medic at my side, I would probably have lost the arm there and then.” He closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest and exhaled through his nose. “I appreciate your Minutemen’s enthusiasm, Sentinel, but I would prefer this to be a Brotherhood operation with minimal militia involvement, if any.”

   “Yes, Elder,” Rachel said, secretly relieved. “I have an alternative strategy I’d like to try.”

   Maxson looked up, raising an eyebrow. “An alternative strategy? Explain.”

   “I have connections to a chapter of the Children in the north, on an island called Far Harbor. They see me as some kind of chosen one because I brought one of their holiest relics back to them, and I think - I hope - I might be able to use that leverage to get them to tell me what’s happening here. If I can get a decent picture of what’s going on, maybe I can stop this before it goes any further.”

   “They also think I’m a prophet of Atom,” Piper added. “Long story.” She waved her hand in the air briefly, as if that was all the explanation she was willing to offer. “If I can convince them I’ve had another vision of ‘Atom’s will’,” she said, making quote marks in the air with her fingers, “maybe I can help make them back off. You know how much they value messages from their god.”

   The Elder narrowed his eyes. “What did I just say, civilian?” he snapped, irritated. “This is Brotherhood business, not yours.”

   “Oh, stick it up your ass, Maxson!” Piper spat back, suddenly tired of Maxson’s dismissive tone. “You need me!”

   “I can assure you, Miss Wright, that I do not,” Maxson said in a low, unnervingly-calm voice. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you have any right to question the way I command my troops, purely because of who you associate yourself with.” He moved closer to Piper and jabbed his finger directly into the centre of her sternum. “This operation will need to be executed as precisely as possible, and I will not allow it to be jeopardised by a single reporter from Diamond City.”

   “Why?” Piper cried, her face still bright red with anger as she swatted Maxson’s hand away. “Scared that one woman could achieve something you and all your knights couldn’t?”

   “ _Enough!_ ” Maxson slammed his clenched fist into the nearest bulkhead, visibly wincing as he withdrew his hand from the wall. “Sentinel Adams, be so kind as to remove your… friend… from the bridge, before I do something we would both regret very much.”

   “He’s right, Piper,” Rachel said, sensing a way to end the hostility before it got any worse. “Maybe it’d be best if you waited for me in my quarters. I won’t be long, I promise.”

   “No,” Piper insisted, still staring daggers at Maxson. “No, I’m not going anywhere, Blue.”

   “Yes, you are,” Rachel said, and gestured at the two knights who were flanking the entrance to the bridge. “Escort Miss Wright to my private quarters, and then stand guard outside the door so you can make sure she doesn’t leave until I join her.”

   “Yes, Sentinel!” the knights barked in unison, before they hooked their arms around Piper’s elbows and began hauling her away despite her best efforts to stop them. Defiant to the end, Piper thrashed and kicked and cast graphic aspersions on the knights’ families all the way to the access hatch that led down to the habitation deck.

   When the echoes of Piper’s obscenity-laced screams had finally faded, Maxson rubbed the bridge of his nose with the thumb and forefinger of his gloved right hand, turned to Rachel and said in an exasperated tone “Why do you continue to insist on bringing that girl aboard this ship, Sentinel? I recognise that you and she are involved, but that does not mean she needs to be party to everything you do as a member of the Brotherhood.”

   “With respect, Elder,” Rachel began, “Piper has been a valuable ally to us for almost two years. She’s provided me with vital intelligence more than once, and I trust her with my life.”

   “I have no doubt about that,” Maxson agreed, “but Miss Wright has repeatedly demonstrated that she has no respect for discipline or the chain of command. Why is she so essential for this mission?”

   “Because what she said was true - her experience with the Children of Atom will be invaluable. I’d be far more likely to get some answers from them with her by my side than I would with an entire detachment of Brotherhood soldiers. She’s achieved more with her words than she ever has with a laser rifle and power armour.”

   Maxson was silent for a moment. “Do you know why I promoted you to Sentinel after we destroyed the Institute, sister?”

   Surprised, all Rachel could do was say “Is this a trick question, Elder?”

   “Not at all,” Maxson replied. “I gave you that rank because I trusted you implicitly. I trusted your bravery in combat and I trusted your ability to inspire others to follow you. And now, since I can clearly see that I will not be able to convince you otherwise, I will trust your judgement regarding Miss Wright.”

   “Thank you, Elder,” Rachel said, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders.

   “Don’t thank me yet,” Maxson told her sharply. “If you do decide to take Miss Wright with you, understand that she will be your responsibility, and yours alone. The Brotherhood has bigger concerns than one single civilian. Do I make myself clear?”

   “Perfectly, Elder.”

   “Good. Dismissed, Sentinel,” Maxson said, before saluting her. “Ad victoriam.”

   “Ad victoriam, Elder.” Rachel’s armoured fist clanged loudly against her chest-plate as she returned the salute, and then she turned smartly on her heel and marched off the bridge, making her way directly towards the access hatch and from there to her private quarters. When she arrived there, the two knights standing guard snapped to attention immediately, holding their rifles smartly across their chests. “At ease, gentlemen,” she said, and they relaxed accordingly. “I trust Piper hasn’t given you any trouble?”

   “A couple insults, but not much more than that,” one of the knights replied. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

    _Well, that’s certainly a first,_ Rachel thought wryly. “You’re dismissed, then - I won’t be needing your help anymore this evening. Return to the bridge.” When the knights had departed, Rachel tapped her personal access code into the terminal beside the door and then stepped through. As the door automatically closed behind her, she faced the closest wall and then tripped the internal switch in her right gauntlet that allowed her to exit her armour, feeling its plates loosen around her as its body-hugging frame unlatched itself with a pneumatic hiss. Rachel felt a slight rush as the atmosphere touched her skin again for the first time in what seemed like years - even the recycled air of the _Prydwen_ smelled as sweet as roses after her being cocooned in her metal shell for so long.

   She barely had time to enjoy more than two breaths of it, however, before Piper grabbed her shoulder, spun her around and started screaming at her.

   “What the hell was that?” she yelled. “He threatened me, Blue! Why did you take his side?”

   “Because I didn’t want to make the situation worse for no reason,” Rachel said calmly. “Besides, when you’ve been around Maxson as much as I have, you start to realise that he’s a showman as much as he is a leader, more often than he likes to let on.”

   Piper looked at Rachel in disbelief. “So? What if he wasn’t putting on a show just now?”

   “Then I would have tried to stop him, however I could,” Rachel replied. “I can read Maxson pretty accurately at this point, though, and this was definitely one of the times when he was just keeping up appearances. He doesn’t personally resort to physical aggression towards unarmed civilians very often, but when he does it’s usually only because he just wants to rattle his sabre and make you feel like you shouldn’t dare to overstep your bounds.” She half-smiled despite herself. “Did he succeed?”

   “Hell no,” Piper retorted with a derisive snort, the ghost of a smile crossing her lips for a second or two. “It’ll take more than a big facial scar and a bad haircut to scare Diamond City’s most intrepid reporter. Haven’t you learned _anything_ about me yet?”

   “That’s what I thought you’d say,” Rachel said, moving forward and encircling Piper’s waist with her arms. Even though she was almost a full head taller and significantly more muscular than the slender, compact journalist, she still sometimes felt completely dwarfed by Piper’s sheer heart and courage - in fact, she was sure that if bravery and determination alone could be weaponised, her girlfriend would undoubtedly be the most heavily-armed person in the entire Commonwealth. “Don’t ever change.”

   “Not planning on doing that any time soon,” Piper said, resting her head against Rachel’s shoulder. “Just so we’re clear, though: I’m still going to punch that man in the face one day.”

   Rachel burst out laughing. “Better get in line quickly, then - I don’t think there’s one member of the Brotherhood who _wouldn’t_ punch the Elder in the face if they got the chance.” She paused, raising her eyebrows for a moment. “Of course I don’t think there’s one member of the Brotherhood who wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet for him, either, so I guess he must be doing something right.”

   “I guess so,” Piper said, thoughtfully. “Just don’t ask me to try and find out what that something is - that’d mean talking to him for longer than ten minutes at a time, and there are some things even _I_ won’t do for a story, you know?”

   “Well, there’s something I never expected to hear come out of ace reporter Piper Wright’s mouth,” Rachel replied, tapping her chin with a single fingertip. “I guess that’s my surprise for the day, huh?”

   “Looks like it,” Piper agreed with a wry smile, before she glanced at the softly-ticking clock on the wall. “Hey, look - it’s getting pretty late. Maybe we should try to get some sleep?”

   “Sounds like a plan,” Rachel said, “unless you wanted to, I don’t know… keep the neighbours awake for a while?” She traced Piper’s jaw delicately with her fingertips for a moment before tilting her girlfriend’s chin up and gently pressing her lips against the other woman’s mouth, feeling Piper’s body wilting against her momentarily before she suddenly stiffened and pulled away reflexively, her eyes wide as saucers.

   “What the hell are you doing, Blue?” she asked, incredulous. “We could get into a lot of trouble here!”

   “You’re acting like this is the first time we’ve done something like this,” Rachel laughed. “Besides, I thought you lived for danger, little miss reporter? Are you chickening out on me?”

   “You know it’s not that I don’t _want_ to,” Piper said as she rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, “but, well, I mean… you’re a Sentinel now. Doesn’t that mean you’re supposed to be setting an example here?”

   “Technically, yes,” Rachel said, shrugging, “but I also don’t have to answer to anybody except Maxson, either, so there’s that.” She reached down and gently thumbed open the button of Piper’s pants, sliding her hand in between her fly and her panties, caressing the already-slick folds beneath the lacy fabric with the lightest of fleeting touches. “That means that we can break the rules,” she whispered directly into Piper’s ear, “just you and me, here and now.”

   “Are you sure -“ Piper began hesitantly, before Rachel deftly slipped two fingers inside her and started to circle her centre with her thumb. She gasped in surprise, a sudden, sharp intake of breath that lingered for only a few seconds.

   “Yes,” Rachel murmured, nipping at Piper’s neck with her teeth, “I’m sure. Are you?”

   “Yes, I’m - oh, God,” Piper said, her fingers reflexively clenching tightly into Rachel’s body as her girlfriend’s tongue teased the nipple of her right breast ever so slightly.

   “Then what’s stopping us?”

   Piper had no answer.

***

   The two of them lay naked on the floor, tangled in each other’s arms, sweaty and exhausted. Piper was reaching up to stroke Rachel’s cheek with the palm of her right hand, and Rachel had her arms curled around the smaller woman’s body. “So how does breaking rules feel?” Rachel said softly into Piper’s ear.

   “Like a Nuka-Cola Quantum after a month in the Glowing Sea,” Piper said, laughing and drumming her fingertips across Rachel’s skin a little more vigorously. “We should do it more often.”

   Rachel chuckled. “I guess this would be a bad time to tell you nobody would have been able to tell what we were doing, then?”

   Piper sat bolt-upright almost instantly. “I’m sorry, what?” she asked, incredulous. “What do you mean ‘nobody would have been able to tell’?”

   “After we helped Danse escape the Brotherhood and I got given these particular quarters,” Rachel began, “I had Proctor Quinlan scavenge up the best soundproofing his scribes could find for me, and then had them install it into the walls during the times I was away on missions.”

   “So you mean… nobody could hear us?”

   “Not a soul. You could almost set off a nuke in here and nobody would be any the wiser.”

   Piper frowned. “So what was all that talk about breaking the rules?”

   “Oh, that? That was me doing my best to sweet-talk you out of your panties, honey,” Rachel purred, with a smile.

   “You really are kind of an asshole sometimes, Blue, you know that?” Piper said in a sour tone, clearly struggling to maintain an angry appearance despite herself.

   “Not going to deny that,” Rachel agreed, “but it worked, didn’t it? I thought it’d be a little more exciting if you thought it wasn’t exactly… legal.”

   “You’re lucky I love you, Blue,” Piper said. “Anyone else would be dead right about now.”

   “I don’t doubt it,” Rachel said, as she glanced at the clock and pushed herself to her feet. “Now, I really think we should get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow…”


	3. Fire Support

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel and Piper's journey begins, but not without complications and a crisis of confidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raised the rating for this chapter's contents.

**** They made it as far as the East Boston police station before they ran into trouble. Rachel thought that had to be some kind of record, and immediately regretted leaving her armour in her quarters on the _Prydwen_.

“Hey, ladies,” the raider said through yellow, broken teeth. “Just passing through? Gotta pay the toll.” He and his gang were blocking the street and had their crude, haphazardly-constructed weapons firmly levelled towards Rachel and Piper. All of them reeked of alcohol and chems, and Rachel thought at least one of them was high on something considerably stronger right at that very moment – most likely Psycho, considering the way she was muttering nonsensically to herself through cracked, spittle-caked lips. Of course, she might just have been plain crazy – after all, from what Rachel had been able to discern, raiders weren’t too picky about who they let into their little fraternities, so long as they could swing a blade or pull a trigger. She had long since decided it was part of their questionable charm.

“And what toll is that?” she asked, folding her arms and doing her best not to obey her instinct to pull her own gun as the raider stalked closer towards her, the individual pieces of his jagged, makeshift armour jangling noisily against one another as he moved. He ended up directly in front of her and then grinned, his dirty teeth looking even more disgusting up close.

“The ‘pay the nice raiders two hundred caps each or bad things start to happen’ toll,” he sneered. “So you better pay up, or bad things really will start to happen. Maybe we’ll start with your little friend?” He gestured to another member of his gang, who casually directed his rifle at Piper’s stomach.

“I’m warning you –” Rachel began, beginning to move forwards before the raider leader raised his pistol and pointed it straight at her face, his thumb easing back the weapon’s hammer with an audible click.

“Ah-ah-ah  – mind your manners, honey,” he chided, wagging a grimy finger at her. “Either you pay up now, or you wind up cleanin' her guts off the street and still have to pay up later anyway.”

“You’re making a big mistake, you know that?” Rachel said, not flinching as the raider leader stepped forward and pressed the muzzle of his weapon against her throat.

“Is that so?” he said with a smirk. “Mind telling me what I’m doing wrong?”

Rachel smiled thinly. “You didn’t look down first.”

Confused, the raider reflexively dropped his gaze, the barrel of his gun lifting itself from Rachel’s skin as he did so. The instant he broke eye contact, Rachel swiftly grabbed the Ripper chain-dagger she had tucked at the rear of her belt, thumbed the activation switch and shoved it through a gap in the uneven plates of his armour, all in one fluid motion. The dagger’s whirring teeth chewed hungrily through his gut, gouts of blood and chunks of shredded meat spewing over Rachel’s gloved fingers before she tore the blade free with a wet, sticky slurp. The raider stumbled a few steps to his left, crimson-flecked spittle dribbling off his chin as his mouth tried vainly to form words. Then his legs buckled and he collapsed in an awkward heap, his hands still clasped over his ruined belly.

For a few precious seconds, the other three raiders froze at the sight of their leader’s mangled body, expressions of utter horror crossing their scarred faces – even the Psycho-addled maniac looked stunned. Piper used their momentary shock to shift inside the reach of the man pointing his gun at her, knocking his weapon aside and jamming her own pistol under his chin before she pulled the trigger. Instantaneously the top of his head disintegrated, bone fragments and brain matter spraying upwards and outwards as he fell flat on his back, his gun slipping free from slack, unresponsive fingers and clattering to the ground. As the two surviving gang members finally started shaking off their collective shock, Rachel was already moving towards the woman on Psycho, slashing at her bare midriff with the Ripper. The woman yelped and dodged the swing before dragging a weapon of her own from its sheath, an uneven shard of rusty metal bound only with a few frayed strips of brahmin leather.

“Gonna kill you!” she screamed, her unnaturally widened eyes accentuated even more by the stripes of dark paint smeared across the upper half of her face. “ _Gonna fucking kill you!_ ” Darting forwards, she swung the makeshift blade down in a wild, uncontrolled arc. Unfazed, Rachel jinked swiftly aside and let the woman’s own momentum unbalance her, before she slammed her foot into the side of the woman’s knee and sent her sprawling to the ground, the impact of her skinny body kicking up a puff of fine dust. Before Rachel could close the gap between them, though, the woman scrambled desperately to her feet, spitting out a glob of thick drool. Then she let out a guttural, wordless growl and surged toward Rachel, lashing out with her weapon again. Smoothly, Rachel parried the uncontrolled blow, sparks flying where the screeching teeth of her chain-blade clashed with the coarse edges of the metal spike, twisting it out of the raider’s hand and sending it spinning away across the street.

As the weapon skidded to a halt, Rachel threw her own blade to the ground and balled her fists. She advanced on the woman quickly, ducking under an uncoordinated punch and landing a single crunching blow in the centre of the raider’s face. The heavy steel studs mounted on the knuckles of Rachel’s leather glove bit deep, crumpling the woman’s nose to paste under their impact, and Rachel used her momentary disorientation to grab her right arm with both hands. Quickly, she executed a standard Brotherhood hold-and-throw technique that Paladin Brandis had taught her shortly after his arrival on the _Prydwen_ , and as she twisted on the ball of her foot and heaved the woman over her body, she felt the arm she was holding snap neatly in at least two places, just as it was supposed to. The woman let out an agonised howl as she landed heavily on the cracked sidewalk, a loud, squelching pop indicating that her shoulder had been abruptly dislocated. 

In disbelief, Rachel watched as the raider somehow managed to wobble upright, pushing herself to her feet with a single hand. Her other arm hung uselessly, one of the bones in her forearm visibly protruding through the skin, and her breathing was wet and laboured, but she still raised her one working arm and clenched her fist. She clearly had no intention of giving in any time soon.

_All right,_ Rachel thought sourly. _Time to finish this._

Pivoting on the point of one foot, she hammered her booted heel directly into the woman’s gut and then tackled her around the waist, taking them both to the ground again. “Stay down!” she snarled in frustration as she smashed her fists into the raider’s face one after the other. The woman coughed out a mouthful of blood containing two teeth and then, mercifully, went limp, a small sigh escaping her scarred lips as she sank into unconsciousness.

“Blue?” came a voice, slightly shaky but still strong. “You okay?”

Rachel turned her head quickly and saw Piper standing a few metres away from her, cradling her left arm close to her chest. She had lost her cap and the area around her right eye was purple and swollen, but otherwise she seemed intact.

“Me? What about you?”

“I’m fine,” Piper said, gesturing at her face. “This is nothing. You should see the other guy.” She pointed the thumb of her good hand behind her, to where the body of the raider who had attacked her lay in a jumble of his own limbs, unmoving but still breathing. “He got in a few good hits, but then I kicked him right where he didn’t want to be kicked, and he went down like a sack of tatos. After that it was pretty much game over.” She turned her head slightly and called back to the man on the ground. “Isn’t that right, asshole?” The raider simply let out a strangled groan, which brought a satisfied smile to Piper’s bruised face. “See? That’s what I’m talking about.”

“Stop with the grandstanding, Pipes,” Rachel chided her, stepping closer and brushing Piper’s hair out of her face. “Your arm looks like it’s in bad shape – let me help you with that.” She dug into her pocket and brought out a stimpak, reaching out towards Piper's arm in order to administer it, but Piper shook her head and pushed Rachel’s hand away. 

“Don’t waste that. Just give me half an hour to stretch it out and I’ll be right as rain, I promise.” She sighed, clenching her left hand a couple of times to try to bring some life back to it as quickly as possible. Rachel saw the corners of her mouth twisting in pain slightly, no matter how much she tried to hide it, but then she took a deep breath and let her hand drop down to her side again.“Look, if you’re really worried, I’ll get Doctor Sun to take a look at it the next time we go back to Diamond City.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Rachel said, pursing her lips, “but I guess it’ll have to do for now.” She paused, gesturing at the fallen raiders. “We’d better get moving. Don’t want to run into more of these guys right now, after all.”

“Good plan,” Piper agreed. “Just let me get my cap first…”

***

It was almost nightfall when they took shelter in a ruined building. A rad-storm was blowing in from the north, sickly green clouds blocking out the moonlight as poisonous rain started hammering the ground, some of the droplets leaving tiny, sizzling dents in the cracked sidewalk. Not wanting to take any chances, Rachel popped open a bottle of Rad-X as soon as she heard her Pip-Boy’s Geiger counter start to chatter angrily, passing one of the angular pills to Piper after she had taken one for herself. 

Piper swallowed the pill with a mouthful of purified water, and then took a deep breath. “Blue?” she said. “Can I ask you something?”

“You know you can,” Rachel said, suddenly intrigued. “What’s on your mind?”

“Do you really think we can do this? Stop a war?”

“We stopped the Institute, didn’t we?” Rachel replied, summoning the smallest hint of a smile. “This can’t be too different to that, right?”

“That was a completely different situation and you know it,” Piper said sharply. “Don’t bullshit me here.”

“Okay, no bullshit,” Rachel said, rubbing her face with her gloved hands. “Honestly, right now I haven’t got a clue. You’ve dealt with the Children of Atom more than I have – you know they’re not like those raiders we ran into earlier. They’re not fighting for caps, or for food, or for treasure, they’re fighting for an _idea_ , and that’s the hardest thing there is to beat. So no, I don’t know if we can do this.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “What I _do_ know is that I’m sure as hell going to try, because I have too much to lose if I don’t:Sanctuary, Shaun, Nat… you. I lost my world once and I’ll be damned if I lose this new one as well. I have to try.”

She paused once more, but before she could begin speaking again, Piper was kissing her, cupping her face in both hands and taking her breath away, leaving her light-headed. “Not just you,” Piper said as she broke the kiss. She leaned forwards so that their foreheads were touching, and then reached down and intertwined her fingers with Rachel’s delicately. “Us. We’ll try together.” She smiled. “You’re my world too, you know – where you go, I go.”

“Well, as far as motivations go, that’s a pretty good one,” Rachel said, returning Piper’s smile with one of her own. Suddenly she became acutely aware of the small box in the inner pocket of her jacket, knowing that this would be both a perfect and an insanely stupid moment to show Piper its contents. Her fingers twitched slightly in Piper’s grip as she struggled against the impulse to reach for it.

She was almost relieved when she heard the rumble of gunfire and the yells of Gunners and raiders in the distance. _Not yet,_ she thought as she and Piper got quickly to their feet, weapons drawn and ready _._

_Not yet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while since I've written any fight sequences, so this was a bit of a gamble. Hopefully it paid off!


	4. Chewed Up And Spat Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Rachel arrive at Far Harbor, and make some new friends in the process.

 

Far Harbor was nothing more than a husk, a burnt-out wreck. That much had become clear even before Rachel and Piper had dropped anchor – the smoke from the still-smouldering buildings had been visible from a significant distance away, curling and twisting westwards in the coastal breeze. Before they could disembark onto the dock, though, they were stopped by two gaunt figures dressed in tattered robes that reeked of sweat and motor oil, their shaven heads caked with dirt and grease. 

“Hold!” one of them exclaimed, pointing her radiation rifle at Rachel. “State your business or leave now, heretic.”

Rachel raised her hands, palms forward. “Easy, sister,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “Don’t you recognise me? I’m a Child of Atom too. The Mother of the Fog chose me as Her emissary.”

The girl raised a patchy eyebrow, then squinted, clearly trying to remember Rachel’s significance. Abruptly her eyes widened in shock as she realised just who it was she was looking at, and she immediately lowered her weapon and dropped to her knees in reverence, her head bowed. “Oh, Atom above,” she whispered, her words tinged with regret and fear. “I didn’t mean to threaten you, Emissary, I swear. Please forgive me.”

“It’s all right, sister,” Rachel said, laying her hand gently on the girl’s paint-covered scalp and then motioning for her to get to her feet. “You don’t have to kneel to me. Only Atom deserves that honour.”

“Thank you, Emissary,” the girl whispered as she rose to her full height again. “Glory to Atom.”

“And all He touches,” Rachel replied, nodding. “You do Him proud with your devotion, sister.”

“Thank you, Emissary,” the girl said once more, still a little reluctant to look Rachel directly in the eye. Then she noticed Piper standing behind her and said “Who is this? Did you bring us a new convert?”

“Piper was a member of our family before, but she lost her faith and left us,” Rachel explained. “She saw the light and knelt before me while I was away preaching our gospel. After we talked, she agreed to come and re-join us here.”

“That’s… that’s right,” Piper said, quickly realising she had to play along. “Atom appeared to me in a vision and told me to – to seek His grace anew.”

“You had a vision of Atom Himself? Truly you are blessed,” the girl said in wide-eyed awe. “What did He look like?”

“Look like?” Piper repeated, suddenly looking completely flustered. “He, ah… He looked like a man made of green fire. I couldn’t see His face, but when He reached out and took my hand in His, I felt His power burn right through me and I knew I had to be His again, forever.” She paused, spreading her hands out to either side. “So here I am, ready to serve Him again.” 

The girl grinned broadly, obviously overjoyed to hear that a member of the Church had returned home. “Then we welcome you back, sister.” She turned to the other robed guard and said “Send word to the High Confessor that the Emissary of the Mother has returned.” The man nodded silently before turning on his heel and swiftly making his way up the dock’s rickety staircase, towards the path out of the harbour. When he had disappeared, the girl said “”What can we do for you now, Emissary?”

“Wouldn’t mind an explanation of what’s happening here,” Rachel said bluntly as she gestured towards the ruins of the harbour. “What exactly have you done to this place? Where are all the people?”

“The High Confessor had a… revelation,” the girl replied. “Grand Zealot Richter says he was guarding Tektus while he was praying, and he saw him fall to the ground, speaking in a strange language nobody understood. When he woke, he said that he had received a message from Atom that we needed to do more to bring others closer to Him.”

“By killing them?!” Piper said, disbelief dripping from every word. Rachel was surprised she hadn’t punched the zealot in the face yet. “How does that help?”

The girl shook her head emphatically, looking a little pained. “We didn’t kill anyone. We simply destroyed their blasphemous condensers and let Atom’s holy fog do the rest. Some of the unbelievers stayed to fight, but most of them fled to the sea or to the south. The ones who stayed we took back to the _Nucleus_ once they’d run out of bullets.” She paused. “There they will learn their place in Atom’s plans. Isn’t that what we all want to know, in the end?”

“I suppose so,” Rachel said, seeing that she wasn’t going to get any real answers from the girl while she was lost in adoration. She decided to change the subject. “Why don’t we get off this dock? I’m pretty sure I saw a rad-storm following us inland, and I really don’t want to be caught in it.”

“As you wish, Emissary,” the girl replied, bowing her head slightly. “We have plenty of food and water if you need it. Follow me, if you please…”

 

***

 

The centre of the dock was now taken up with a large bonfire, composed largely of barnacle-encrusted timbers, old nets and smashed furniture. Several wooden spits had been set up across it, but only one was in use right now, its length covered in greasy, unevenly-sliced meats from various animals. Some of the rawer cuts even glowed a vivid, sickly green, suggesting that they had been taken from severely irradiated individuals. Rachel wondered if perhaps the Children thought they were totems of some sort – and if they were, whether they thought partaking of the meat would grant them the same abilities as the animal it had been taken from. She hoped there was no truth in that kind of belief.

She took a large mouthful out of a ragged chunk of what she hoped was roasted mole-rat, which was garnished with what looked like crumbled hubflower blossoms. It was chewy, spicy and a little too crispy on the outside, but overall it wasn’t half bad, which was a surprise in itself – the last time she had sampled some of the Children of Atom’s favourite “delicacies”, she had felt sick for a week afterwards. She swallowed it, and then found the girl, who she had learned was named Sister Emily, looking at her with a wide-eyed expression of hesitant anticipation. “How is it, Emissary?” she asked, clasping her hands together with visible nervousness. “Do you like it?”

“It’s very good,” Rachel said, truthfully. “Thank you for making it, sister.” She finished the last few bites of the meat quickly, if only because she was ravenous after going several days without partaking of something even just a little more substantial than Piper’s seemingly-inexhaustible supply of stale, irradiated gum drops and lukewarm Nuka-Cola. She put the meat’s skewer down onto the cracked plate the girl had given her, and then leaned forward, deciding to cut to the chase as quickly as she could. “So, can you tell me more about Tektus’ vision? Are we going to spread the word of Atom to the whole country?”

“That and more,” Sister Emily replied, looking visibly energised. “The High Confessor wants to give all humanity the kind of glow only Atom knows. Some of us volunteered, but we need more converts to make this divine mission work.”

“What divine mission? What are you talking about?” Piper demanded. Rachel saw her knuckles whiten as her grip tightened on the skewer in her hand, as if she was about to jam it through the girl’s neck. She gently laid her hand on Piper’s arm to keep her from losing her restraint, and Piper reluctantly relaxed, while still looking silently furious.

“The High Confessor wants more of the holy ones that live here on the island,” the zealot explained. “They’re full of the glow, inside and out, and the Confessor wants to use them for our cause.”

“You mean ghouls?” Piper asked, sounding dumbfounded. “Why?”

“Don’t call them that,” Sister Emily snapped indignantly. “They’re closer to the power of Atom than any of us. His blessings run through their veins.”

“Of course they do,” Rachel began, “but how does the Confessor think he can share them?”

“Transformation,” the girl said. “Tektus says that Division won’t happen without it. We’re just trying to reach the lost first. What better way to show the unbelievers that Atom’s path is the only salvation?” She pushed herself to her feet and gestured towards what had once been the Last Plank. The building had had all of its exterior decoration stripped from it so that it was bare and featureless, aside from the emblem of the Church of Atom which had been crudely daubed onto the windows in white paint. “I’m late for Father Elias’ evening prayer session. Will you join us?”

“I’d be honoured,” Rachel said, and began to get to her feet before Piper abruptly grasped her hand and prevented her from following. She glanced back and saw Piper shaking her head almost imperceptibly, her eyes filled with urgency. “I’ll be with you in a minute, sister,” she called over her shoulder. “Go ahead without me.” Sister Emily looked disappointed for a moment before she turned away and hurried inside the Last Plank’s battered shell, her dirty robes fluttering slightly in the breeze. Rachel kept her head turned to one side in order that she could listen for the sound of the tavern’s battered door clicking shut, holding a finger up to keep Piper from speaking. When she was satisfied that the zealot was suitably out of earshot, she lowered her finger, returned her gaze to Piper and said “Make this quick, Pipes. We can’t afford to keep that congregation waiting for long.”

“This is insane, Blue!” Piper said without hesitation. “I thought that that Tektus synth was supposed to be _less_ crazy than the real deal?”

“So did I,” Rachel said ruefully. “Looks like we might both be wrong. The question is, what could have happened to make him start acting this way?”

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Piper replied, frowning, and then directed a derisive thumb at the Last Plank. “Sister Looney Tunes and the rest of the kooks in there certainly seem convinced by what he’s selling, though. Must be some damn strong stuff, whatever it is.”

“No argument there,” Rachel said, before standing and offering Piper her hand, which Piper took and pulled herself to her feet. “Better keep them all happy for now, though. We both know how pissed off these people can get if they don’t get what they want.”

Piper nodded in silent agreement, and the two of them went into what was left of the Last Plank, immediately feeling the sting of radioactive incense in their eyes and nostrils, the burners hanging from the ceiling spewing glowing green vapour downwards in swirling clouds. It had been scented with dried lureweed and bloodflower blossoms, which gave the former tavern a thick, pungent floral odour that wasn’t much better than the thick, pungent odour of stale liquor and cigarettes that had previously filled it. The bar and booths had been torn apart and replaced by a makeshift dais constructed of dismantled chairs and tables which stood at the far end of the room, with a similarly cobbled-together pulpit set on top of it. Behind the pulpit stood who she assumed was Father Elias, who seemed to be a decorated member of the Church, judging by the way his lined face was covered with intricate face paint that depicted a series of concentric circles centred around his right eye. When he heard Rachel and Piper step through the door, the old preacher stopped his sermon as he looked in their direction and said “Emissary? I’d hoped you would join us for this evening – would you like to say a few words? I know they wouldn’t go unappreciated.”

Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure about that, father?”

“Of course. The Mother wouldn’t have chosen you if She didn’t have a good reason,” Elias said, with a warm smile. He took a step backwards from his pulpit and held out his hand, inviting Rachel to take his place. “Please, say whatever you would like.”

“Well, if you really think this is a good idea, I’ll do my best,” Rachel said.

_This is_ not _a good idea,_ she thought as she crossed the room and stood behind the pulpit, leaving Piper standing at the back of the room with her arms folded _. Here goes nothing, though, I guess…_

“Atom chooses His faithful very carefully,” she said, every word feeling like molasses in her mouth, “and every one of us is special to Him in some way or another. He chose me to be a messenger to His children, just like He chose all of you to spread His good news to the people who haven’t felt His grace. We are all one Church because He calls us, and –”

“Praise Atom!” Sister Emily cried out from the back of the congregation, her voice wild and joyful.

“Be _silent_ , child!” Elias snapped in an exasperated tone. “Show some restraint!” 

“No, it’s all right, father – she can speak if she wants to,” Rachel said, holding out her hand toward him, palm downwards. “Sister, would you come up here, please?” She beckoned the girl closer with her other hand while still indicating the old preacher should remain quiet, and Sister Emily slowly got to her feet, uncertainty etched all over her painted face. Nervously, she shuffled closer to the pulpit, clutching her hands together as her gaze flickered to and fro across the four rows of kneeling disciples, who were all regarding her with various looks of scorn, pity or irritation. Clearly she was not well-regarded by at least some of the faithful, and Rachel instantly worried that she had perhaps made a mistake by singling her out. She decided she had better try to fix that if she could. “Don’t be shy, sister. Atom welcomes all.” When Sister Emily had finally made it up to the pulpit, Rachel stepped down and moved to stand beside her. “What do you see when you look at this girl?” she asked.

“Trouble,” Elias said, glaring at Sister Emily, who squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze. “Nothing but trouble!”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn’t do as she’s told, or stay quiet when she should stay quiet. She has no respect for our traditions!”

“Sister Emily has shown me nothing _but_ respect since I got here, father,” Rachel stated, stepping in front of the smaller girl in order to shield her from Elias’ wrath, “and didn’t you hear what I just said about every one of us being special to Atom in our own way? Maybe your traditions could stand to be just a little bit more flexible.” She turned away from the old man, towards the assembled worshippers. “I’m proud to call this girl my sister in Atom, and I want each of you to think very carefully about how you treat her. When she’s sick, do you help her? When she’s sad, do you comfort her? When she’s happy, do you laugh with her? If the answer to all of those things is ‘yes’, then you should treat her as part of your family, no matter what she does. If the answer to even one of those things is ‘no’, then you have no right to criticise her.” She looked back at the preacher. “Someone much wiser than me once said ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’. If you want to throw stones at my sister, father, you’d better make damned sure to be flawless yourself first. Do I make myself clear?”

Stunned, all Elias could do was nod and murmur “Yes, Emissary,” in a humbled tone.

“Good,” Rachel said, her voice clipped, before turning, taking Sister Emily’s cheeks between her two gloved palms and kissing her delicately on the forehead. “You can worship Atom however you like, sister. He knows your devotion, and so do I.”

“Thank… thank you, Emissary,” Sister Emily whispered, her eyes going saucer-wide with wonder.

Rachel smiled. “You’re welcome,” she replied. “Just don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t let you down,” the girl said breathlessly, her words almost visibly catching in her throat. “I promise I won’t.”

“I know you won’t,” Rachel answered, “but I think we’ve disrupted this service enough.” She glanced at the old preacher and pointed towards the ceiling. “Is the room upstairs free, father?”

“I’m using it at the moment,” the old man said, looking slightly taken aback. “What do you need it for?”

“I’d like to pray in private with Sister Emily, and Piper and I will need somewhere to sleep before we leave for the _Nucleus_ in the morning,” Rachel said matter-of-factly. “You can have the room back when we’re gone.”

“As you wish, Emissary,” Elias said, a decidedly dismayed expression forming on his face. “I’ll sleep down here tonight.”

“Thank you. I’ll make sure the High Confessor knows about this hospitality, father.” Rachel moved away from Elias then, taking Sister Emily’s hand and moving towards the bar’s staircase. As she did so she beckoned Piper to follow her, and the three women headed upstairs, leaving the rest of the congregation to finish their hymns without them.

The bedroom itself was a little cramped, but Rachel decided it would have to do. Positioning herself in the middle on the bed she invited Piper to sit to her right and Sister Emily to sit to her left, before she clasped their hands in her own, closed her eyes and began reciting a prayer in a solemn tone. ”Atom above,” she began, “take this moment to hear us, and shine upon us. We give thanks for Your glory and beg for Your guidance in this, our time of need. Show us the way and save us from ourselves, until Holy Division comes. Praise be to Atom.”  


“Praise be to Atom!” Sister Emily echoed fervently. She kept up her enthusiasm almost continuously for the next hour that she spent chanting and praying, and left with a wide smile on her face. When she had finally gone out of earshot, Rachel closed the door and leaned against it, closing her eyes, exhaling heavily and rubbing her palms across her cheeks. Lowering her hands, she saw Piper standing opposite her, arms folded across her chest.

“Well, that was a whole bunch of fun,” she said sourly. “What the hell are you doing, Blue? I thought we were here to stop these guys, not join hands and sing around a campfire!”

“This isn’t what I wanted to be doing either, but I think it’s what needs to be done. We need a friend here, Pipes, and that girl is the best shot we have.”

“A friend?” Piper scoffed. “Looks more like you want a disciple to me. I thought you didn’t believe in any of this?”

“I don’t,” Rachel said, “but she does, and so does everybody else who was in that service tonight.You remember what I said about an idea being the hardest thing there is to beat?”

Piper frowned, her eyes narrowing. “What are you planning?”

“An exchange of ideas,” Rachel replied simply. “Sister Emily is going to help us change this church forever.”


	5. Night Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Rachel make their way to the Nucleus, with only a few distractions.

The fog-crawler had come out of nowhere, screaming like a banshee as it emerged from the thick pea-soup mist. It had descended upon Rachel, Piper and Sister Emily as if it had dropped from the sky, its glowing red eyes burning with hunger and bloodlust, and Rachel had barely been able to fling herself out of the way of its clawed forelimbs as it began its attack. She dived behind the closest cover she could see, a collapsed, rotten tree trunk still attached to its stump by a few strips of bark, and unslung the radiation rifle that Sister Emily had requisitioned for her from the stockpile of weapons held in Far Harbor. It was a clumsy, haphazard weapon that Rachel had major misgivings about using, considering the patchwork nature of its construction, but right now it was the only thing she had that was even vaguely capable of doing any real damage to the screeching, armoured behemoth bearing down on her. 

Before she could pull her weapon’s trigger, however, the fog-crawler swiped angrily at the tree trunk with one of its massive forearms, the huge talon smashing the decaying wood to pieces and sending worm-infested splinters flying in all directions, before it stormed through the gap it had created, chittering with anticipation as it bore down on Rachel, who could only try to raise her rifle and hopefully fire a couple of shots before the crawler got to her –

– only for the hulking beast to suddenly buck backwards, shrieking in pain and surprise. Glancing around in momentary confusion, Rachel saw Sister Emily standing to the crawler’s left, quickly pumping out pulsing green bolts of glowing gamma ray-infused energy from her modified plasma gun, which seared multiple burning grooves into the crawler’s midsection. The monster bellowed furiously at the slight girl at least three times smaller than itself, instantly turning away from its original target and rounding on its new prey. “Run, Emissary!” Sister Emily cried as the crawler surged towards her.

_Sorry, honey, you don’t get to be a martyr today,_ Rachel thought as she braced her rifle against her shoulder and squeezed the trigger three times, putting all three glowing green shots into the knee joint of one of the crawler’s rear legs, shredding the chitinous armour and causing the monster to stumble, roaring in agony. At that moment Piper opened fire with her faithful ten-millimetre pistol (which she had decided to keep despite Rachel’s insistence to the contrary, saying that radioactive weapons weren’t really her style), having skirted to the crawler’s right while it had been distracted by Sister Emily’s initial attack. The hail of hollow-point bullets punched fist-sized holes in the crawler’s plated flank, loops of bloody viscera immediately bulging through the ragged gaps. The beast lurched drunkenly sideways, almost tripping over its own legs, before Rachel calmly put a short volley of rounds into the side of its head, pulping its brain and finally bringing it to the ground. Its forelimbs twitched reflexively a couple of times, their enormous claws scraping shallow furrows into the muddy ground, and then it lay still.

Rachel barely had time to shoulder her rifle before Sister Emily came rushing up to her, an expression of deep concern on her face. “Emissary? Are you all right? Are you hurt?” she asked, almost frantically.

“I’m fine,” Rachel assured her. “Just give me a minute, okay?” She reached around to the rear of her belt, grasped the hilt of her chain-dagger and advanced on the crawler’s corpse, before grabbing one of the creature’s awkwardly-splayed legs and beginning to saw at it with the dagger’s whirring teeth.

“What are you doing, Emissary?” Sister Emily asked, slightly confused.

“Don’t worry, kid, you’re in for a treat,” Piper laughed as she holstered her gun and then draped an arm over the shorter girl’s shoulder. “The Emissary’s fried fog-crawler is to die for, believe me…”

 

***

 

Sister Emily devoured the chunks of lightly-cooked fog-crawler as if it was her last meal, sucking the juices from the rich, tender meat off her fingers to make sure that she didn’t waste anything. “Atom above, that was good,” she breathed, her eyes closed almost in ecstasy. “Where did you learn to cook like that, Emissary?”

“I’d love to say I’m self-taught,” Rachel replied with a chuckle, “but I had a lot of help from my mom and my big sister Jenny. They were the best cooks I ever knew – I bet if they were here now you wouldn’t even give that fog-crawler a second look.”

Sister Emily shook her head abruptly. “No, that's not true,” she insisted. “You’re the Emissary.”

“So? Doesn’t change the fact that my sister was still a better chef than I am,” Rachel said, lightly bumping Sister Emily’s shoulder with a loosely-balled fist. “You don’t always have to side with me, you know. I guarantee you it wouldn’t make Atom angry if you just thought my sister’s seafood tasted better than mine, I promise.” She smiled, still hoping that she’d eventually be able to get the girl to loosen up a little. “I could still kick her ass when it came to playing Blast Radius, though.”

“That’s a big old lie and you know it, Blue,” Piper said casually, popping a piece of crispy crawler meat into her mouth. “You suck so badly at that game. How many times have Nat and I beaten you now? I’ve lost count.”

“You had to say it, didn’t you?” Rachel retorted, rolling her eyes in mock-exasperation. “Couldn’t you have at least let me have that?” 

“Just reporting what I’ve seen first-hand,” Piper replied in a matter-of-fact tone, smiling mischievously around her food before swigging a mouthful of Nuka-Cola directly from the bottle she’d taken from an inner pocket of her trench-coat. “It’s what I do, remember?”

“I don’t understand, Emissary,” Sister Emily interjected, tilting her head quizzically. “Why do you let this woman talk to you so disrespectfully?”

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Relax, sister – Piper and I always talk to each other like this. She doesn’t mean anything by it. Besides, what kind of person would I be if I couldn’t take a few jokes now and again?” She grasped Sister Emily’s shoulder with one hand. “Don’t worry about it. I can promise you that Piper is just as devoted to Atom as you and I are.” Then, glancing over at Piper, she added “Isn’t that right?”

“Absolutely,” Piper said. “Atom told me to follow this woman, so I follow her. She knows I’m not serious.”

Sister Emily huffed, still looking a little unconvinced for a moment. “If you think it’s all right,” she said, looking over at Rachel for confirmation.

“I told you, Piper and I always talk to each other that way – it’s no big deal,” Rachel stated gently. “You know, we have got to get you to relax every once in a while. Maybe I can get my friend Cait to teach you to dance?”

Piper spluttered, almost choking on a sip of her drink. “Wait, Cait can dance? Since when?”

“As far as I know, she started taking lessons from Magnolia in Goodneighbor last year, when she decided that she needed a hobby which didn’t involve punching people in the face for money,” Rachel replied. “She’s pretty good, from what I’ve seen.”

“Really? How come I’ve never seen her, you know… strutting her stuff?”

“Because she knows what you’re like and she doesn’t want the whole of Diamond City knowing about it, that’s why,” Rachel laughed, opening a bottle of water as she did so. “I don’t know why it’s such a surprise, though; you’ve seen the way she moves during her fights. Girl’s got rhythm.”

“Yeah, but dancing and punching someone in the face aren’t really the same thing, are they?” Piper retorted.

“Sure they are – they both need you to have great footwork, they both need you to be in really good shape, and they both need you to have someone decent to work with,” Rachel replied. “The only real difference is that you usually get to keep most of your teeth when you dance.” She returned her attention to a very confused-looking Sister Emily. “So does that sound like something you’d be interested in taking up, sister?”

“That sounds like a challenge,” the girl answered after a long, thoughtful pause. “Confessor Tektus is always telling us we should challenge ourselves.”

Piper pursed her lips, suddenly looking annoyed. “Forget what Confessor Tektus would think, what do _you_ think?”

“I think it sounds like it could be a fun change,” Sister Emily replied. “There’s not much to do in the _Nucleus_ but pray and meditate. Sometimes I like to ask Zealot Ware to tell me one of his stories about the mainland, though. Those always sound like great adventures.” She sighed. “And sometimes I think about asking the High Confessor if he’d let me go preaching the word to the Commonwealth with Brother Joseph for a while, but I don’t know if he’d agree to that.”

“Brother Joseph? Who’s he?” Rachel asked, curiously, wondering whether she’d found another ally without even trying.

“You saw him when you arrived, Emissary,” Sister Emily explained. “I met him when I arrived at the _Nucleus_ about five years ago, and we’ve been best friends ever since. We do everything together.”

“Best friends who do everything together?” Rachel pressed. “Nothing more than that?”

Sister Emily blushed, her jaundiced skin turning beet-red in an instant. It was the most genuine emotion Rachel had ever seen from one of the Children. “No,” she insisted, almost bashfully. “I mean I hope we’ll always be friends, but –“

“But you’d like him to be more than a friend, wouldn't you?” Piper said in an intrigued tone, leaning forwards as if she was trying to catch the scent of a big story. 

“I… guess you could call it that,” Sister Emily said, a hand going uneasily to the back of her hairless scalp. “It’s just – I promised to give myself to Atom, over everything else. I feel so selfish.”

“Oh, honey,” Rachel began, “Atom doesn’t care about that, believe me. If you want to know whether Joseph feels the same about you as you do about him, then ask him. At least you’ll have an answer, even if it’s not the one you want.”

“I’m not sure,” Sister Emily said, glancing down into the flames of the camp-fire. “What if he says no? I don’t want to drive him away.”

“If he’s really your friend, he’ll understand,” Piper reassured her. “If he doesn’t, you’re better off without him, kiddo… but you have to say something, or it’ll eat away at you for years, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want that, right?”

_Words to live by,_ Rachel thought suddenly, feeling the box in her pocket seemingly growing exponentially larger again. _Ask her. Make her see how much you care. What do you have to lose?_ She frowned briefly, forcing her feelings back into hiding again. _No. Not now. Prioritise, for fuck’s sake – let this go until the mission is complete. Come on, soldier. Ad victoriam._

***

 

It took another ten minutes to convince Sister Emily to act beyond what the Church of Atom had taught her, and even then she only agreed hesitantly before the three women had begun to move again. Now they were close to the _Nucleus_ , the green fumes rising from the submarine base glaringly visible in the evening gloom. As they reached the top of one of the surrounding hills, Sister Emily turned to Rachel and said “Emissary? Miss Piper? May I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Rachel said. “What’s on your mind?”

“I was just thinking… are you going to be with us a while? And if you are, would you be willing to wear the markings of the Church while you stay with us? I can paint your faces for you if you’d like.” She dipped her hand into one of the pockets of her robe and brought out a small lump of worn charcoal. “Only if you agree, though, I don’t want to seem like I’m imposing or anything –“

Rachel reached out and clasped Sister Emily’s hand. “I’d be honoured, and so would Piper.” She glanced over at her companion, who looked distinctly less than thrilled. “Isn’t that right, Piper?”

“Totally,” Piper agreed grudgingly. “Paint away, kid.”

Sister Emily almost squeaked with excitement, and stepped closer to Rachel in order to begin gently sketching several concentric circles around her right eye, the lump of charcoal barely whispering across her skin as she did so. It wasn’t long before Sister Emily had finished her designs and the women began the final stretch of their journey to the _Nucleus._

When they arrived at the fortified entrance to the submarine base, Rachel was immediately appalled at what she saw. Lashed to a large, vertical wooden platform was the limbless, glowing body of a feral ghoul, its head snapping backwards and forwards as it gnashed its teeth and growled at the Children of Atom who surrounded it, chanting in monotone voices as they manually pumped its luminous vital fluids out of the stumps of its arms and legs through clear plastic tubing, which trailed across the muddy ground towards the infinitely worse spectacle of four emaciated cultists similarly lashed to wooden frames. Their robes had been roughly torn open to reveal their bare chests, which had been split open at the sternum and a cracked fusion core jammed in with their exposed organs. Each broken core was connected to one of the tubes coming out of the glowing ghoul, the pump forcing the ghoul’s blood down into the core’s centre and pushing it almost to critical mass. The bound cultists were writhing in pain, but they were nevertheless still managing to cough a song of praise through bloody lips, and the foremost cultist’s skin was already starting to turn a translucent green.

Behind her Rachel could hear Piper noisily vomiting her guts up. She didn’t blame her.

“What is this?” she asked Sister Emily urgently. “Tell me what’s going on here, sister.”

“Isn’t it obvious, Emissary?” Sister Emily said in a reverent tone. “This is transformation.”


	6. In The Cold Light Of Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel & Piper's arrival at the Nucleus raises as many questions as it does answers.

Looking at the grotesque tableau in front of her, Rachel had never wanted to shoot somebody as badly as she wanted to right at that moment. She wanted to storm into the submarine base, push aside anybody in her way and then put a bullet firmly between the synthetic eyes of High Confessor Tektus. She wanted to trigger the nuclear warheads of the _Nucleus’_ payload and watch it explode in a giant plume of atomic fire. She wanted to slaughter every last Child of Atom who thought this… whatever _this_ was… was somehow their salvation.

That was what she _wanted_ to do, but it was also what she knew she _couldn’t_ do, because not only were she and Piper outnumbered massively, but killing Tektus with no rhyme or reason would inevitably result in making him a martyr, and undoubtedly only strengthening his cause in the process. Cutting the head off this particular cobra, she knew, was going to need a more balanced approach than just pulling her trigger a few dozen times. Clenching her fists she marched past the chanting cultists, trying not to let the moans of pain and perverse joy coming from the strung-up sacrifices distract her, straight up to the front entrance of the base. One of the two armoured guards on duty stared at her almost in disbelief. “It’s really true,” he said, his eyes gone wide. “The Emissary’s returned to us.”

“I have,” Rachel replied, struggling hard to keep her voice as calm as possible. “I’m here to see the High Confessor; I have matters I need to discuss, so you need to let me talk to him.” She narrowed her eyes. “ _Now._ ”

The zealot bowed his head briefly and then opened the door to the base, immediately causing the Geiger counter in Rachel’s Pip-Boy to start shrieking in protest. Reflexively Rachel reached for the bottle of Rad-X tablets in her pocket and swallowed one of them with a mouthful of water from the flask she had slung at her waist. She passed the flask and the bottle of tablets to Piper, who managed to take one without throwing up again, even if she did look like she was barely keeping herself together. Rachel took her hand to help her maintain her balance as she wobbled on unsteady feet, and immediately felt Piper’s fingers tighten around hers like a vice, almost crushing her knuckles in the process.

As Rachel, Piper and Sister Emily entered the base, Rachel noticed that the decontamination arches she had “repaired” with what she thought had been an almost undetectable alteration weren’t functioning as they had been previously, their nozzles once again dry and unresponsive. Seeing Rachel’s interest, Sister Emily gestured at them and said “The arches stopped working a little while after you left us. Sister Mai tried to fix them again, but she couldn’t, so we had to leave them as they were. The High Confessor wasn’t very happy, but he –”

“I’m sure the High Confessor can tell me himself,” Rachel snapped, interrupting Sister Emily in a clipped tone. “Where is he?”

“He hasn’t left his shrine in the _Nucleus_ since he had his vision,” Sister Emily said, a little taken aback by the tone of Rachel’s words. “I’ll take you to him –”

“I know where his shrine is,” Rachel said, interrupting Sister Emily again. “I can find my way there myself without your help.” She took a deep breath then, realising that alienating her only real ally here would be a huge mistake, and laid a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, sister – I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. Forgive me.”

“Of… of course, Emissary,” Sister Emily said, surprised. “I didn’t take offence.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Rachel replied, “but I still feel like I need to make it up to you. How about I come and find you when I’m done speaking with the High Confessor, and we can pray together some more?”

“Thank you, Emissary,” Sister Emily said, curtseying in gratitude for a moment. “I’ll be in my bunk on the middle level when you leave the High Confessor; it’s the first one on the left as you come down the stairs. I’ll see you there?”

“Yes,” Rachel reassured her, taking Sister Emily’s willowy hand between her palms as she did so. “Hopefully this won’t take too long.”

Sister Emily lowered her eyes in supplication and then took her leave, disappearing down the nearest rickety wooden staircase without another word. Rachel still didn’t understand how such a haphazard, cobbled-together construction was even stable, let alone permanently occupied, but she had learned long ago not to question it. Whatever kind of engineering was being used, she reasoned, it obviously worked well enough. Nevertheless, as always she still let out a small sigh of relief when she and Piper set down on the metal of the _Nucleus’_ scarred, pitted hull, their footsteps ringing out in the enclosed space of the launch bay, and opened the access hatch into its innards.

Rachel’s Pip-Boy screeched angrily again as it realised that the radiation levels in the submarine itself were considerably higher than those outside of it, and for a moment Rachel wondered if she could pull out its power source in order to silence it. She curled her hands into fists and tried her best to block out the device’s panicky, skittering cries as she and Piper descended further into the _Nucleus’_ bowels, the only light source being the banks of candles that flickered and sputtered in every corner of every room they passed through. Disciples of Atom knelt in prayer or sat cross-legged in quiet contemplation at regular intervals along the path to Tektus’ throne room and private shrine, the candles’ flames draping lengthy, uneven shadows over them as they soaked up the submarine’s toxic atmosphere, no doubt silently hoping for a revelation from their god. When they finally noticed her, however, they flocked to her in a heartbeat, blocking her path as they eagerly beseeched her to bless them or just tried to touch her clothes. It took all her will to refrain from bluntly shoving them all aside and ignoring their attempts to win her favour, instead masking her frustration by faking a smile and laying her hands on as many of the faithful as she could reach. Eventually she was able to part the crowd of adoring zealots and make her way towards the shrine where she knew Tektus would be waiting for her. She resolved not to hesitate for a moment longer than she had had to already.

As soon as the crowd was out of earshot, though, Rachel felt Piper’s hand on her arm. She turned around to look at the other woman and found herself faced with a dead-eyed, tear-rimmed glare.

“Bring the Brotherhood here,” Piper said in a flat tone. “Get on the radio and call them so they can burn this whole fucking place to the ground.” 

“What?” Rachel said, not quite believing what she was hearing. “You can’t be serious.”

“Never been more serious in my entire life,” Piper continued, her expression stony and cold. “These assholes don’t deserve to live after what they did to those people outside.” She narrowed her eyes almost to slits. “You know I’m right, don’t you?”

“Piper,” Rachel began, taking hold of the shorter woman’s upper arms and directly meeting her gaze. “Piper, honey, I know this is a really shitty situation, but right now I need you to listen to me. Whatever Tektus did outside doesn’t matter in here. In here we can’t do _anything_ to him, do you understand? We need information and he’s the only one who can give it to us, so we need to keep him alive for now.” She exhaled loudly, gesturing to both of the narrow passageway’s exits. “We’re also surrounded. You fire off a single shot in there and I guarantee you we’re both dead inside two minutes.”

“Maybe we’d be better off dead,” Piper said in a raspy, withered voice, her icy facade cracking as fresh tears cut glistening trails down her cheeks, despite her efforts to keep them contained. “We could have – we _should have_ stopped this! Why didn’t we stop this, Blue? Those poor people out there are dying because we weren’t fast enough to save them!”

“I know,” Rachel said, drawing Piper closer to her and enfolding her in her arms, gently pressing Piper’s head to her chest, “but we can still try to save whoever these people took from the Commonwealth and Far Harbor. They’re our top priority now, okay? We have to get them out of here as quickly as we can, and calling in the Brotherhood would most likely get them killed in a crossfire. If we’re going to save those people, we need to pick our battles and I need you to stay with me. Can you do that?” She felt Piper let out a couple of juddering sobs, the sounds muffling themselves against her body, and then the reporter looked up at her, her eyes still wet but now filled with something other than monotone rage.

“Yes,” she said, her voice quavering for a moment before she injected it with the faintest trace of her trademark fortitude. “Yes, I can do that.” She disengaged herself from Rachel’s arms and ran her hands through her hair, taking a couple of deep breaths and dabbing at her bruised face with a handkerchief she’d kept hidden up one of her sleeves. “I’m sorry I freaked out, Blue. I couldn’t help it.”

“You shouldn’t have to apologise for being angry about this,” Rachel told her emphatically. “Don’t ever think that having a heart is a weakness. Now let’s go get some answers.”

The door to Tektus’ shrine was ajar ever so slightly, and through the gap Rachel could hear him reciting a lengthy prayer, his voice slurring slightly at the end of every line. Then, as she and Piper entered the shrine, she saw his head twitch violently, and as it did so his words became a high-pitched, almost electronic chirruping sound. Rachel frowned for a moment, a little puzzled since she’d never heard any other third-generation synth make anything close to that kind of noise before, until her anger and resolve abruptly returned. Striding forwards, she grabbed a loose fold of Tektus’ robe and yanked him to his feet, turning him around roughly so that she could look him in the eye. As soon as she did so, however, she saw exactly why Tektus had been stumbling over his words: the left side of his face was sagging limply, almost as if he had had a stroke, spittle leaking from between his slack lips. For a moment it seemed like he didn’t recognise her, his eyes clouding over as if his brain was trying to retrieve lost or corrupted information, before the light returned to them and he smiled as best he could. “Emissary?” he asked, his voice dragging lethargically across his tongue even as his mangled expression registered his surprise. “You… you honour… me with your pres  – your pres – your presence –” and then he began warbling mechanically again, his head jerking violently to the side for a moment after he finished speaking.

“What happened to you?” Rachel asked, stunned that the machine behind the man could have gone so wrong.

“A gift from – from Atom, child,” Tektus replied, his wilted, melted-candle face briefly showing some muted elation. “He showed me what to do. Showed me the true path we must all follow to be free.” He twitched again, mechanical chittering replacing his words momentarily once more. “Pain is a temporary price to pay for the truth, don’t you think?”

“I’ve always thought so,” Rachel said, almost through gritted teeth. “Where are you keeping the people from Far Harbor and the Commonwealth, Confessor? I want to see if I can convince them to join our family willingly. They know me, after all – maybe I can make them realise that this is their only chance to be saved?”

Tektus frowned for a moment, then nodded in agreement. “If you think that’s what needs to be done, Emissary,” he said, “then I will leave it up to you. You will find the heathens in the lower level of the base; I thought it prudent to make sure that they got a good dose of the glow before we helped them ascend. None of them seem to be unaffected by Atom’s touch, after all.” He smiled an uneven smile. “Much better for them in the long run, yes?”

“That’s very true,” Rachel said, her jaw tightening around the words. “Please excuse me, Confessor – I have some people I need to speak to.”

Tektus nodded again. “As you wish, Emissary. With your help I’m sure we can make this mission of ours succeed.”

“I hope so,” Rachel lied, before she turned on her heel and marched out of the shrine, closing the door behind her and Piper as she did so. Then she looked at Piper with a haggard expression and said “Okay. ‘Burn this whole fucking place to the ground’ it is, then.”

“Wait,” Piper said, incredulous, “you’re not really going to destroy this place now, are you? After all you said  –”

“No, not like that,” Rachel explained. “Not literally. We _are_ going to break this place to pieces, but we’re going to do it with faith, not bullets. Come with me and I’ll show you how.” She took Piper’s hand and led her out of the submarine, towards the barely-stable gantry where Sister Emily had said her small bunk was situated. When they arrived there, the young woman was lying on her grimy mattress with a pair of delicate wire-framed spectacles perched on her nose, completely lost in a technical manual about fusion generators, so Rachel coughed gently to attract her attention. She looked up over the rims of her glasses to see where the noise had come from, before abruptly scrambling to her feet when she realised precisely who it was who had appeared at her bedside.

“Emissary!” she said excitedly, before bowing her head in respect. “You came back! I didn’t expect you to remember me.”

“How could I forget?” Rachel said, placing her palm across the top of Sister Emily’s scalp before she shifted her fingers underneath the shorter woman’s chin so that she could meet her gaze. “I need you to follow me now, sister. Will you help me get the prisoners from Far Harbor and the Commonwealth out of here?”

“I don’t understand – why would you want to do that?” Sister Emily said in a slightly confused tone. “Don’t you want to help spread Atom’s word?”

“Yes, but not this way,” Rachel said emphatically. “The Mother of the Fog chose me to be her messenger for a reason, and that reason wasn’t to sit back and let a false prophet destroy everything you’ve built here.”

“‘False prophet’?” Sister Emily repeated, horrified. “What are you saying, Emissary?”

“What I’m saying, sister,” Rachel replied, picking her words with slow, deliberate care, “is that no matter his intentions, the High Confessor is defiling this place against Atom’s will. He’s not himself, and he cannot be allowed to stay at the head of this church under any circumstances.”

“How can you say that?” Sister Emily asked, suddenly becoming visibly distressed. “How can you doubt him? The High Confessor is the most devout of all of us.”

_This would be so much easier if I could just tell her the truth about Tektus,_ Rachel thought, sour frustration coiling at the back of her brain. _Figures that I wouldn’t get the easy option._ “He may think he is,” she said, “but what he’s doing is wrong, don’t you see?” She paused. “You told me before we got here that you wanted to go preaching to the mainland with Brother Joseph one day. Isn’t that better than hurting people the way Tektus wants you to?”

“I – I don’t know,” Sister Emily said, her voice shaking. “I can’t leave here now –”

“Yes, you can,” Piper told her firmly. “You and Brother Joseph can come with us back to the Commonwealth if you want to, but the Emissary needs your help first. Atom needs your help.”

“But why me?” Sister Emily asked, still not sounding convinced. “I’m nobody special. Why did you choose me?”

“I was nobody special too, and then the Mother of the Fog appeared to me,” Rachel said, shrugging momentarily. “Everybody has to start somewhere, and I think this is where you start, sister. I have faith in you – do you have faith in me?”

“I… do,” Sister Emily whispered, lowering her chin to her chest. “You’re the Emissary. I’ll follow you wherever you lead.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Rachel replied. “Now we have a lie to expose…”


	7. Faith Under Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel's plan picks up steam.

“Brother Joseph? I need to talk to you,” Sister Emily whispered as she tried to shake her friend awake from his slumber. He rolled onto his opposite side with an annoyed grunt, his face twisting with irritation as he turned his back to her. Undeterred, Sister Emily shook him again. “Please, brother. I really need to talk to you.”

Reluctantly Brother Joseph turned to face her again, his mind clearly still a little foggy with sleep. “What is it?” he mumbled in mild annoyance as he rubbed his eyes. It took him a second to realise that Sister Emily wasn’t alone – Rachel and Piper stood a few steps behind her. Instantly he got to his feet, smoothing down his robes and tightening the cord that cinched them in at his waist as he did so. “I’m sorry, Emissary,” he said as he regained his balance and then bowed before her, spreading his arms to either side. “If I’d known it was you I would have –”

“It’s all right, brother,” Rachel said simply, laying her hand on the top of Brother Joseph’s shaven scalp for a moment. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I haven’t?” Brother Joseph asked, frowning. “Then… why are you here?” 

“We need your help,” Rachel replied. “We have to free the prisoners you took from Far Harbor and the Commonwealth.”

“But the High Confessor –”

“Is my concern,” Rachel finished, her voice sharp. “In fact, he should be everyone’s concern. What he’s doing is wrong. It’s against everything we believe.”

“How can it be wrong?” Brother Joseph exclaimed. “We’re just doing what Atom is asking us to do.”

“No, you’re doing what the _High Confessor_ is asking you to do,” Rachel retorted. “You can’t trust Tektus anymore, do you understand me? Something very bad’s happened to him – he’s not the man he used to be. He has to be stopped before his heresy spreads any further, for his own good and for the good of this church.”

“Please, Joseph, you have a chance to do some real good here,” Sister Emily said, imploringly. “You know the Emissary is just trying to do her best for the Church, don’t you? This isn’t what we were promised when we came here.”

“What we were promised?” Brother Joseph echoed, his frown deepening. “We were promised salvation, sister. If this is what it takes to be saved then it has to be done.”

“No, Joseph, this is the wrong path – I know that now. Do this for the Emissary.” 

“I’m not sure,” Brother Joseph said in an increasingly-conflicted tone. “I don’t even know this woman. Why should I trust her over the High Confessor?”

“Because she’s the one who the Mother of the Fog chose to reveal herself to – the one who brought us back the holy symbol of the Mother’s love,” Sister Emily replied. “I think that counts for more than a single vision, don’t you?” She stepped forwards and clutched her friend’s hands in hers, her pale knuckles going even whiter as she closed them around his fingers. “But if you don’t want to do this for her… will you do it for me?”

“All right,” Brother Joseph said after a lengthy pause. “All right. Follow me.” He walked quickly towards the nearest staircase, the wood creaking in annoyance with every one of his footsteps, and headed downwards towards the lowest level of the base, leading the three women behind him through the wafting trails of radioactive vapour and incense that permeated the Children’s living quarters. Rachel felt her nostrils start to sting as the combination of odours got more and more intense the lower they descended, her stomach simultaneously tying itself in knots as she tried to hold back the gagging sensation she could feel building at the back of her throat. No matter how many times she visited the _Nucleus_ , she still found herself wondering how these people hadn’t dropped dead from radiation poisoning by now.

_Irrelevant,_ she told herself scornfully, clamping down quickly on any wandering thoughts. _Focus on the mission, soldier._ She folded her hands into fists and walked that little bit faster, trying to compartmentalise her thoughts as she did so.

The abducted settlers and citizens of Far Harbor were standing ankle-deep in the radioactive water pooling at the bottom of the submarine base, contained within a wooden cage that was securely weighted down and fastened together with lengths of both chain and rope. Even with her untrained eye Rachel could see that many of the prisoners were already extremely unwell, their sallow, sunken cheeks and pallid, sweat-soaked skin an indication of just how toxic their surroundings really were, patches of the luminous water covered with floating slicks of bloody vomit. The settlers from the northern reaches of the Commonwealth looked particularly afflicted, which Rachel supposed made sense – for them the island’s own unique cocktail of radiation would have been a totally new sensation, one that their immune systems would reject without regular infusions of Rad-X and RadAway to stave off its effects. She remembered how the very air itself had made her woozy and sluggish the first time she had breathed it, so she had at least some idea of the nauseous discomfort they had to be feeling. Captain Avery and Brooks still appeared completely fine, if a little bedraggled, since their synth physiology didn’t react to radiation at all – or if it did, it happened at a vastly reduced rate to that of human tissue. There had to be some side-effects eventually, she supposed, considering Danse had managed to pass as human for years on end without suspicion, but whatever they were, now wasn’t the time to be pondering the finer points of synthetic biology. _Just another thing I should save until later,_ she decided. _Mission first, everything else second._

As she approached the cage, Captain Avery abruptly noticed her and began to open her mouth to speak. Quickly Rachel pressed her finger to her lips and shook her head as she sloshed towards the cage as quietly as she could, gooey strings of unidentifiable organic debris rippling around her boots as she did so. 

“Mainlander?” Avery whispered in disbelief as Rachel closed the gap between herself and the cage. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving you,” Rachel replied simply, before she fished a pristine bobby pin and her favourite screwdriver out of her jacket’s outer pocket, crouching as she started to tentatively experiment with the tumblers on the first of the three padlocks keeping the cage’s door closed, only taking a few moments to pop its tumblers and pull it free. “This shouldn’t take long. Can you move?”

“I think so. Most of us from Far Harbor are basically fine – Allen’s looking a little green around the gills but I think he’ll be okay. The man’s far too ornery to let a little bit of sickness get him,” Avery said, before regret began to hang heavily in her words. “The mainlanders the rad-worshippers brought here are in pretty bad shape, though. I don’t think anything short of a bath in RadAway is going to get them anywhere close to healthy again.”

Rachel felt her shoulders sag as if under a heavy weight, and she exhaled a long breath of sheer frustration. “Couldn’t give me just one easy win, could you?” she muttered, lowering her head to her chest for a moment before she met Piper’s eyes again. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do: Piper, you, Captain Avery and Sister Emily will take those that can walk on their own and get them out of here while I create a diversion. Stick to the shadows, keep out of sight and don’t stop unless you have to. Brooks, you and Brother Joseph will stay here with those that can’t move by themselves. Keep them covered, and then evacuate them as fast as you can. Hopefully I can buy you enough time to get them through the door of the base, and then join you when I’m done.“

“Wait,” Piper said, laying her hand on Rachel’s collar-bone, a concerned expression creasing her bruised face. “What do you mean ‘diversion’?”

“I mean I’m going to try preaching again,” Rachel replied, returning her attention to the locks on the cage door and tossing aside the second as it clicked open reluctantly. It made a forlorn splash as it sunk beneath the water’s greasy surface and then disappeared, leaving only a few momentary ripples to mark its existence. “I haven’t worked out the finer details of the sermon yet. Just… just trust me on this.”

Piper scowled. “You know, Blue, whenever you say stuff like that it makes me want to trust you _less_ ,” she said in a flat tone as she removed her hat and ran her free hand through her hair, “but all right. I trust you. See you soon.” Leaning down, she gently kissed the top of Rachel’s scalp. “Don’t you dare die on me, you beautiful asshole, or I swear I’ll kill you.”

Despite herself, despite the situation, Rachel couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll bear that in mind.” She pushed herself to her feet and squared herself up in front of the compact reporter after she had popped the final padlock and thrown it away, taking one of Piper’s small, pale hands in hers and brushing her lips against the shorter woman’s mouth for a moment. “I won’t be long, I promise.” She unslung her radiation rifle then, pressing it gently but firmly into Piper’s grasp. “Here – you should take this. You’ll probably have to use it more than I will.”

“I don’t understand,” Piper said, tilting her head quizzically for a moment. “Why are you giving me this? Won’t you need it?”

Rachel shrugged. “You might get into a serious firefight. The last thing you want is to be underdressed for it, you know?”

“But Blue, what about –” Piper began, before Rachel cut her off abruptly with a wave of her hand.

“I’ll be fine, but these people might not be unless you can protect them. Can you do that for me?”

“I guess I can try,” Piper replied, slipping the rifle’s strap over her shoulder and resting its stock in the crook of her elbow, her finger curling itself around the weapon’s trigger.

“That’s all I ask,” Rachel said, cracking her knuckles reflexively. “Stay here until you hear me start speaking, and then get moving. Be ready.” 

“I’ll do my best,” Piper said, vivid reluctance colouring her words. “Come back to me, okay?”

“Always,” Rachel told her with a small, crooked smile. “Can’t get rid of me that easily.”

She gripped Piper’s fingers one more time before she turned on her heel and began walking towards the staircase that would take her back to the top of the _Nucleus’_ hull, reaching around to the small of her back and checking to make sure her chain-dagger still occupied its spot on her belt, finding the sensation of the weapon’s cold, contoured hilt under her fingertips almost comforting in its own bizarre way.

She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Her trip up towards the top of the scaffolding was just as staccato as the journey to see Tektus, with disciples of Atom flocking around her and beseeching her for a moment of her time as soon as they saw her – and as before, she did her best to hide her irritation behind a fixed smile, short blessings and simple laying-on of hands for those of the faithful who managed to get closest to her, because she had realised that the more she did this, the more support she was likely to receive later, when she really needed it. Gently she managed to push towards the other side of the adoring throng and make her way to the uppermost level of the base, with the faithful following along only a few steps behind her. She continued to lead them along her path until she stood in front of Tektus’ pulpit on top of the _Nucleus’_ upper hatch, her hands curling around the metal railing as her new flock stood back respectfully, anticipation of her sermon clearly visible on their faces. She took a deep breath, her shoulders juddering as she exhaled through pursed, suddenly bone-dry lips.

_You can do this._

She cleared her throat thoroughly before she closed her hand around her dagger again, pulled it from its resting-place and then hit the railing with the reverse side of its toothed blade, the ringing sound amplified exponentially by the acoustics of the launch bay and causing those of the Children of Atom who hadn’t followed her to stand and look towards where the noise was coming from. Three more times she repeated the chime, until she was sure that everybody inside the base who could hear her was pointed in her direction.

“Children of Atom!” she began, trying to project as much confidence and assuredness into her voice as she could while it echoed from wall to wall. “I am the Emissary of the Mother of the Fog, and this is my gospel – hear my words and know the truth!” She paused, pointing at the group of disciples standing in front of her. “Let me ask you a question first: why are we here?”

For a few moments there was silence, before a woman cried out “To serve Atom!”

“Exactly,” Rachel agreed, beckoning the unknown worshipper towards her with one hand. “Step forward, sister. Let Atom’s light shine on your face.” After a moment, a woman pushed her way to the front of the congregation. She was tall and gaunt, with patchy tufts of dirty red hair unevenly distributed across her scalp, and nervousness suddenly etched on her thin features. Rachel smiled at her briefly to try to ease her mood, and said “Don’t be afraid, sister. What’s your name?” 

“My name?” the woman said, as if she could not quite believe the attention she was getting. “It’s… it’s Anna.”

“Thank you, Anna,” Rachel told her firmly. “You’re right: we’re here to serve Atom, and that’s why I came back to the _Nucleus_. Serving Atom is not about causing pain or suffering, it’s about showing others the radiance of His love. How many of you have gone out to preach the word? Anna, have you been to the Commonwealth?” 

“Once,” the red-headed woman said, in a meek tone. She hung her head, her shoulders slumping in shame. “Nobody took any notice of me.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Rachel replied, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “You still tried, and that’s all Atom requires. He is a benevolent father to us all, even the unbelievers, and killing them is wrong. I can see now that Confessor Tektus has lost sight of that, and if you do what he is telling you to do, you make Atom’s message meaningless. You spread fear and reap nothing but violence in return. Is that what you really want?”

The congregation started to ripple with incredulous murmurs of disbelief. “What are you saying, Emissary?” Sister Anna asked, stunned. “Confessor Tektus is blessed by Atom!”

“So he says,” Rachel retorted, scorn thick in her voice, “but you only have his word for that. Have you seen any proof? Has he shown you miracles? I haven’t seen any. But me?” She shrugged. “I brought you back one of your holiest relics after drinking from the spring to the west of here, I convinced Sister Gwyneth to return to the _Nucleus_ , I brought you peace with Acadia, and what has Tektus done? Nothing, except get you to blaspheme against Atom’s creation. You know I’m right, don’t you, brothers and sisters?” She could see the ripples in the crowd increasing with every word, and she found herself daring to believe that this insane plan might work – but then she heard the hatch of the _Nucleus_ creaking open behind her, and she looked back to see Confessor Tektus climbing out, even if he was clearly finding it difficult to use all of his limbs.

“What’s – what’s going on here?” he demanded through his mangled lips. “Emissary? What are you doing?”

“Putting an end to this,” Rachel declared. “You’re a heretic and a liar. Time for you to be deposed.”


	8. Crisis Of Conscience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel finds herself punching above her weight.

High Confessor Tektus narrowed his eyes, a brief expression of confusion crossing his waxy, uneven features for a moment before it turned into an angry snarl. “Blasphemy!” he cried, spittle arcing from his lips as he raised his hand shakily and pointed at Rachel with a quivering finger. “Betrayal!”

_Finally an advantage,_ Rachel thought with a perverse sense of satisfaction. _You’re making this_ far _too easy, tin man._ “No,” she said, her voice even and measured. “Not betrayal. I’m trying to help you, Confessor. I’m trying to save you from yourself. Can’t you see you’re the one in the wrong here?” She gestured back towards the gathered Children, who were universally watching the two leaders of their church with bated breath, as Zealots Ware and Theil cautiously began flanking the throng. “You took these people’s trust for granted, like it meant nothing to you, and I won’t stand by and let your mistakes separate them from Atom any longer. But,” and she paused for a moment, “if you want to leave this temple now, I’ll make sure you’re given safe passage to wherever you want to go. You have my word.” It wasn’t much, she knew, but she also knew that offering mercy without openly expecting anything in return would make the High Confessor look unreasonable for rejecting it. She’d learned very quickly during her courtroom career as a prosecutor that sometimes it was better to let the accused do the hard work for her, and had caught more than a few thieves and assault suspects that way – she had once even had a multiple murderer fall victim to her strategy. She’d been very proud of that case. 

“Your word, ‘Emissary’?” Tektus scoffed scornfully. “What good is your word when you try to take – take my place behind my back?”

“I’m not trying to take your place,” Rachel replied in what she hoped was a sufficiently reassuring tone. “I want you to stay, but your flock needs a leader with a better vision, and that’s not you. What you’re doing isn’t right, Confessor. I know it, these people know it, and deep down you know it too. Let me help you find the right path again.” _Come on, Tektus_ , she thought. _Give me what I want. Spring the trap._

“How dare you?” Tektus hissed. “How _dare_ you? You – you’re no friend to this church!” Raising his voice, he called back to the faithful. “This woman is fooling you all! Do Atom’s will and take her from this place – let her join the sacrifices outside so she can truly serve the Lord of Division!”

There was a brief silence as Tektus returned his gaze toward Rachel, his crumpled face twitching into a misshapen smile as he did so. Then, a single, uncertain voice shattered the stillness as it said “No.” 

Tektus’ thin-lipped grin wilted in an instant, and he rounded on the congregation to see where the word had come from, his eyes gone wide with rage. “Who defies me? Show yourself, you insolent child!”

_There it is,_ Rachel realised triumphantly. _Trap sprung._

The owner of the voice stepped forward, and Rachel saw that it was the tall, gaunt Sister Anna that had spoken. “I do. I defy you, Confessor,” she said, a slight quaver in her words. “I see it now. You’re wrong about the Emissary. You’re wrong about all of this. I defy you.”

“So be it,” Tektus hissed. “Let Sister Anna be – be an example too.”

“I won’t do it,” another solitary voice exclaimed. “I think you’re wrong too, Confessor.” Rachel immediately recognised the voice’s thin, reedy tone as that of Brother Devin, whom she had saved from his self-imposed fasting almost at the last minute. She was briefly relieved to see that he looked a touch healthier now, or at least a little more well-fed, and felt a little twinge of gratitude for his intervention. “I think  –“ 

The boy staggered sideways before he could finish speaking, rocked by a sudden, crunching blow to the side of his head. It took the congregation, and Rachel, a moment to register that Grand Zealot Richter had forced his way through the gathered throng, evidently having had enough of the dissenting worshippers, and cracked Devin in the left temple with the butt of his rifle. The stunned crowd of devoted separated rapidly as he stood over Devin’s dazed form, their expressions turned wide-eyed and fearful. “Enough!” the muscular ex-Enclave soldier exclaimed, casting a scathing glare about himself and causing those closest to him to recoil even further. “The next person to show the High Confessor any disrespect won’t walk away alive. I guarantee it.” He raised his weapon and pointed it directly towards Rachel, casually flicking off its safety catch as he did so. “That includes you. I don’t care if you’re the Emissary of the Mother or not – you will show the High Confessor the respect he deserves, or you will die.”

“Are you really sure you want to do that, brother?” Rachel asked, spreading her hands out to either side. “Are you so threatened by a different philosophy that you would kill me to silence it?”

Sparks suddenly flew off the tower of the _Nucleus_ as a bullet ricocheted off its hull and caused Rachel to flinch reflexively, her heart spasming in her chest as she did so. “That was a practice shot, Emissary,” Richter snapped, ignoring the increasing tumult around him. “I won’t miss next time. Stand down, and this will end peacefully.” He sneered. “Don’t stand down, and we’ll see how blessed by Atom you _really_ are. In fact –”

“I wouldn’t try finishing that sentence, Grand Zealot,” Zealot Ware interrupted flatly, his own rifle raised and aimed directly at Richter’s head. “Put down the gun.”

“I’m telling you, Ware, don’t interfere with this judgement,” Richter said, still keeping his piercing glare focused directly on Rachel. “The Emissary will be punished, one way or another. It’s up to her what that punishment will be.”

Ware shook his head. “You attacked Brother Devin for no reason, Richter. The Emissary stopped him from killing himself.” He took a step forwards, his rifle inching closer to the other man’s face. “Devin might be a Jet-head but he’s my friend, and she saved his life. Who do you think I’m going to support here?”

That got Richter’s attention. In an instant, he turned away from Rachel and squared himself up against Ware, his gun resolutely aimed and ready. Ware was a big man, but he was nevertheless still dwarfed by the brutish Richter, whose presence was becoming more and more unnerving with each passing moment. “I’m going to give you one chance to reconsider, brother, just like I gave the Emissary. Don’t push me into doing something you’ll regret.”

“Threatening me now? I thought I knew you better than that, Grand Zealot,” Ware said in a flat, cold tone, keeping his weapon braced against his shoulder. “Are you really willing to risk everything we’ve built here?”

Richter shrugged. “Don’t test my patience and we won’t find out, brother.” 

Rachel could see the crowd separating already, grouping themselves behind either Ware or Richter, and realised that any spark right now could ignite something terrible – and with the Far Harbor residents trying to sneak their way out of the base, she couldn’t risk stray bullets flying around. She had to act, and she had to do it quickly, or her whole plan would all be for nothing.

Before she could move, though, Tektus had already raised a gnarled hand and pointed at Ware. “This insubordination is unacceptable,” the wizened, defective synth proclaimed angrily. “Make an example out of him, Richter. Atom commands it.”

“No,” Rachel hissed, “Atom doesn’t.” Shoving Tektus out of her way, causing the defective synth to stagger and brace himself against the hull of the _Nucleus_ , she sprinted towards the narrow gangplank that would take her directly to the concrete walkway which enclosed the submarine on three sides. _Don’t do anything stupid, Grand Zealot,_ she thought as she ran, hoping against hope that she could reach Richter and Ware before they killed each other. The fragile wooden walkway protested loudly beneath her urgent footfalls but didn’t break, which reassured her a little bit. All the same she was glad to set herself down on the concrete of the base, exhaling briefly before she started running again, this time towards the increasingly-unstable crowd circling around the two zealots as they stood eye to eye, fingers crooked tightly around the triggers of their guns. She ran, her calves starting to burn a little with every lengthening stride, and made it to the cluster of disciples before either Ware or Richter was able to end the stalemate. She parted the throng with ease, her aura of respect still relatively intact, and strode towards the two zealots before positioning herself in between them and laying her hands on the barrels of their rifles. “All right, that’s enough,” she said, pressing down on the barrels and lowering the weapons gently but firmly before inserting herself between the two men and pushing them apart. “Nobody needs to die today.”

“Maybe not,” Richter said in a clipped tone, “but you’re still not welcome here anymore. Get out.” He met her gaze with an unblinking, steely-eyed glare. “Final warning.” Dropping his gun, he pulled a large serrated combat knife from its scabbard on his belt. Its blade glittered in the uneven light of the base, candle-flames flickering briefly across it. “I used this to gut a dozen mirelurks once,” he said nonchalantly. “What do you suppose it’ll do to you?”

Despite herself, despite the situation, Rachel snorted with amusement. “You’ve killed mirelurks with a knife? I’m terrified.” She turned her head and showed him the long scar running down the right side of her neck, tracing its rough edges with her fingertips. “See this? I got it from a deathclaw.” She smiled. “Those things taste like chicken, did you know that?”

“What are you waiting for, Richter?” Tektus demanded furiously, his slurred words full of white-hot anger. “ _Kill her!”_

Richter didn’t waste his movement. He lunged forwards, his knife racing towards Rachel’s stomach – but he was interrupted as someone grabbed the corner of his shoulder armour, throwing him off-balance slightly. It took him a fraction of a second to right himself and swing round, instinctively aiming a slashing blow at the person who had done it.

It took Rachel a moment to realise that it had been Sister Anna who had saved her, and another moment to realise that Richter’s angry retaliation had opened Anna's throat, the narrow, lengthy wound pulsing first a trickle, then a river of blood down her neck. She gurgled unintelligibly through the bright red liquid as it filled her mouth, clutching weakly at her neatly slit flesh with clumsy, unresponsive fingers before collapsing to her knees and pitching face-first into the hard concrete with a wet thud, a scarlet corona immediately beginning to form around her head.

_Fuck._

In an instant, everything changed. The fragile balance between the two halves of the congregation shattered, disciples beginning to scream at each other before the first real punch was thrown by a sandy-haired male cultist, who knocked Zealot Theil to the ground as he bellowed a battlefield prayer to Atom. Her jaw dislocated and pushed sideways by the blow, Theil scrambled backwards as she drew a pistol from the holster integrated into her hip-armour and then aimed and fired in one motion, hitting the man right between the eyes. A small, almost surgical hole formed on his forehead an instant before the back of his skull opened like a flower, spilling its contents outwards in a soupy red fog. Rachel didn’t have time to fully process what had just happened, though, as Grand Zealot Richter took advantage of the momentary distraction and renewed his attack.

“I told you to leave,” he snarled, fury etched on his craggy features. “Now I’m going to _make_ you leave. _”_ Before Rachel could move, he had brought his combat knife down hard into her right shoulder, the blade’s serrated edge punching cleanly through the ballistic weave of her jacket and scraping against the underside of her collarbone.

Rachel screamed. The pain of the wound worsened when Richter tore the knife free, further widening the ragged cut, and she stumbled for a moment, disoriented and dizzy. She’d been stabbed before, but this was different – she could feel her ruptured muscle starting to sizzle and her veins beginning to burn. The weapon had clearly been bathed in radiation, its effect magnified by the poison it had absorbed, and Rachel knew that meant she didn’t have time to pull her punches – if the radiation continued to course through her body unchecked, she would soon be in no shape to help the prisoners from Far Harbor and the Commonwealth. She couldn’t let that happen.

Shaking her head to rid herself of the fogginess in her skull, she lashed out with her gore-stained right hand, trying to aim her chain-dagger at a gap in Richter’s heavy body armour, only to see the weapon slipping from her slackening fingers and clattering to the floor as more blood soaked its way through her sleeve. 

“No wisecracks now?” Richter sneered at her as she missed her mark before he casually back-handed her hard across the face. She felt her lip splitting and her cheek cracking as his reinforced gauntlet made contact, sharp edges of bone suddenly grinding harshly against one another while she reeled from the impact. Not giving her a moment to come to her senses, Richter kicked her in the stomach, winding her, and she fell backwards into the wall and the open fusebox bolted to it, her right foot involuntarily kicking aside the tray of tools that had been left beneath it. She felt one of her ribs bend painfully against the edge of the box, perilously close to snapping in half, and she collapsed to her knees in front of the Grand Zealot, her head lolling downwards for a moment. As she did so she felt something beneath the fingers of her left hand, something hard and metal.

A wrench. It wasn’t as good as her usual weapon of choice, and it was in her weaker hand, but at this point Rachel would take what she could get. She closed her fingers around the tool slowly, so as not to distract the man in front of her.

“You know, Emissary,” Richter said as he approached her, a cocky swagger in his steps, “I almost regret this. You could have been a great ally to me.”

“That’s funny,” Rachel wheezed, her lungs feeling like they were on fire. “I was about to say the same thing.” Gathering strength in her legs she lunged forwards, sweeping the wrench in her hand around in a narrow semicircle. She didn’t hit anything, but she hadn’t expected to – all she’d intended to do was create some distance between her and the Grand Zealot, which she achieved as Richter swiftly moved backwards out of her reach. Using the momentary respite, Rachel pushed herself to her feet, feeling a searing sensation from her bruised rib that hindered her breathing even further. Her crimson-soaked right arm instinctively wrapped itself around her middle and she wobbled on her feet slightly, still woozy from the radiation pulsing outwards from her wounded shoulder. “Come on,” she spat defiantly, hefting the wrench as best she could, even as her knees threatened to give way again. “ _Come on!”_

Richter’s face contorted with visible contempt. “If you insist, Emissary,” he exclaimed, his voice going icy as he advanced on her, shifting his grip on his combat knife at the same time. He had almost closed the distance between them when gunfire began crackling upwards from the lower levels of the wooden scaffolding, along with exclamations of shock and disbelief.

“The sacrifices are escaping!” one man yelled as he ran up the nearest set of wooden stairs leading down to the toxic sludge at the bottom of the base. “Stop them!” 

_Piper._

It took a moment for Richter to realise what was happening. “What have you done?” he snarled, swiping at her with his knife. Parrying the blow as best she could, a dull clang echoing off the edge of her makeshift weapon and blood tiger-striping her face, Rachel smiled.

“I called in the cavalry.”


	9. You Can't Stop The Press

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper is torn between wanting to do the right thing for others, or the right thing for herself.

Piper watched Rachel as she began making her way up the steps towards the upper deck of the scaffolding which encased the _Nucleus,_ hoping against hope that her girlfriend knew what she was doing.

_Don’t be dumb, Piper,_ she chided herself almost guiltily. _Of course she does._ If travelling with Blue had taught her anything, it was that her girlfriend had a knack for finding a way out of any situation, no matter how hopeless or impossible it seemed. She often wondered how that could be, given the sort of thing the two of them seemed to get caught up in on a regular basis – surely, _surely_ , Blue’s luck had to run out sometime.

_Just don’t let it be today._

She took a deep breath and then turned to Captain Avery, holding out the radiation rifle that Blue had handed to her. “Here,” she began, “you should have this, Captain. I told Blue – I mean, Rachel – I don’t like radiation weapons, and I still don’t. Everything I need I have right here.” She drew her battered ten-millimetre pistol from its holster on her belt and held it up for a moment before she flicked off the safety catch. “Besides, we could all use an extra gun, don’t you think?”

“You catch on quick, mainlander,” Avery rasped through dry, cracked lips. “The rad-eaters won’t let us go easy.”

“I know,” Piper replied, hefting her pistol and casting a couple of cautious glances towards the gantries above her and the rest of the more mobile former captives. “You’re not the only ones the Children of Atom have gone after.” She paused, trying to slow her pounding heart down a little. “Now get ready – stick to the plan and we’ll all walk away from this in one piece.” _I hope._

She slipped her free hand into one of her coat’s pockets instinctively just then, checking to see how much spare ammunition she was carrying, and counted two fifteen-round magazines of pistol bullets, a small penknife and a handful of loose shotgun shells. If nothing else, she supposed she could throw the shells at someone as a distraction before she tried to give them what would amount to little more than a dry shave, because the knife was so small and puny that she only really used it for peeling mutfruits and popping the caps off of bottles of warm, syrupy Nuka-Cola. Still, after everything she’d done in her career as a journalist, after everything she’d seen Blue achieve with weapons that had seemed woefully inadequate at the time, she knew not to take anything for granted when it came to combat. With that in mind, she extended the small blade of the knife and slotted it into her belt. 

“We won’t have long,” Sister Emily said, her breath catching slightly in her throat as her blue eyes tracked the same lines that Piper had. “We should move.”

“No, we wait until the Emissary starts speaking,” Piper snapped. “That’s the plan. We stick to it.” _C’mon, Blue, don’t make me wait too long._

Five minutes passed, during which time Piper heard the sounds of a crowd wafting down from the scaffolding above. She couldn’t make out any individual words but it sounded as if Blue had attracted a flock of followers on her trip up to the higher levels of the base, and again Piper wondered how she managed to do it without going insane from the attention she was getting – if they had traded places she had no doubt she wouldn’t have been nearly so accepting of that kind of obsessive devotion.

Then she heard Blue start speaking, her voice having taken on the same kind of passionate fervour that the rest of the Children of Atom seemed to have all the time. Piper had to admit that that kind of unnerved her a little, but she put that thought aside for now, realising that there were more important things to focus on. “All right, ladies,” she began, looking at Avery and Sister Emily, “let’s do this. Brooks, Brother Joseph, sit tight, okay? We’ll get you all out of here soon, I promise.”

Brother Joseph nodded silently and raised his rifle, while Brooks just hung his head in wordless resignation. Piper drew her lips into a thin line, and then headed towards the staircase leading to the upper levels of the base while simultaneously trying to keep an eye on the half-dozen ragged Far Harbor residents following in her wake. The radioactive water that lapped at her boots as she moved turned Piper’s stomach again – she couldn’t believe something so foul was real, covered as it was in a gooey green film and reeking of what she was sure was a combination of congealed motor oil and excrement. How the Children of Atom lived within smelling distance of this disgusting soup was beyond her, but she blocked it out as much as possible until she reached the staircase, shaking her boots free of some lingering threads of sloppy filth while at the same time promising herself she’d burn them the minute she and Blue got home. Turning to her bedraggled group of survivors she said “Stay close and keep moving. You stand still, we die. You fall too far behind, we die. Don’t pay attention to where you’re going, we die. Understand?” For a moment it surprised her to hear those orders coming out of her mouth so easily, and she wondered if perhaps Blue’s singularly tactical way of thinking had been rubbing off on her a little too much. In this particular situation, though, she supposed military precision wasn’t something to be feared, so she took a deep breath and began ascending the stairs, her heart starting to pound inside her chest so hard it felt like it was going to burst through her ribs. Sister Emily and Avery flanked her as they climbed the stairs, forming a shield in front of the other captives, and Piper swore she could see Avery’s finger twitching on the trigger of her rifle, as if it was one step away from unloading the weapon’s entire magazine in a single burst. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but it still wouldn’t hurt to keep half an eye on the captain’s demeanour from now on.

As they climbed, Piper heard Blue’s sermon take a turn for the worse as the High Confessor’s buzzing, slurred voice started to float downwards, venom dripping from every word. _At least they haven’t seen us yet,_ she thought, trying to take something positive from the tenseness of the situation. Up ahead she could see a single gangly-looking disciple of Atom standing with his back to her, his attention focused completely on the unfolding disagreement above him. Holding up her free hand and clenching her fist, Piper indicated that the majority of the group stay put before she holstered her pistol and crept closer to the distracted worshipper, trying to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible before she wrapped her arms around his neck in what Blue had taught her was called a rear naked chokehold, cutting off the blood supply to his brain and preventing him from calling out. Briefly the thin, scrawny man struggled against her, his hands desperately pawing at her face and trying to jam a finger into one of her eyes in order to make her let go, but with the hold locked in tight and his back to her, there wasn’t much he could do to really shrug her off, and so he slowly sank to his knees before going completely limp. 

When Piper was sure the man wouldn’t be moving again any time soon, she raised her hand and beckoned her charges forwards. When Avery and Emily had joined her, she said “Help me move this guy – he won’t be out forever and we can’t leave him out here in the open.” Hooking her elbows under the man’s arms while Avery shouldered her rifle and grabbed his legs, moving him into a darker corner and then hog-tying him by slicing a gap in the bottom edge of his baggy robes with her pen-knife and tearing a couple of strips off them. The last step was to gag him with the cord securing his robes at the waist. Perhaps the small blade would come in handy after all, she decided, unable to suppress a sense of misplaced amusement. Leaving the trussed-up disciple behind, she drew her pistol again and got ready to begin moving –

– and then she heard the gunshot, and heard Blue screaming in agony.

In an instant panic set in, sour and sharp against the surface of her mind, and Piper struggled to fight it. She was almost on the verge of dropping her weapon and running to try to save the woman she loved, but before she could do so she felt an arm curling around her elbow and preventing her from moving. She turned towards whoever was trying to stop her and saw Sister Emily, her charcoal-painted lips pulled taut and her stony expression a far cry from her usual demeanour. 

“Don’t do it,” the other woman hissed in an uncharacteristically firm tone. “The Emissary will be all right. Trust in Atom and He’ll protect her.”

Piper snorted. “Bullshit,” she snapped, trying to pull away before the other woman tightened her grip. “Let go of me! I have to help her –”

“No,” Sister Emily said flatly, dragging Piper closer to her until they were almost nose to nose. “Atom will protect the Emissary, but we still have to protect these people. That’s what the Emissary told us to do, remember?”

Piper reluctantly conceded the other woman had a good point. She took a deep breath and let her shoulders drop. “Okay,” she said hoarsely, running her left hand down over her face. “Okay.” Every fibre of her being was screaming at her to disregard the situation and run, but she swallowed her fear and looming sense of dread, wiped at the moisture beginning to form at the corner of her eyes with her fingertips and then pressed forwards, her footsteps quickening despite herself.

_Hold on, Blue,_ she thought. _I’m coming._

Another level, then another, silently overwhelming each lone worshipper as they went… and then their luck ran out. As Piper was laying an unconscious woman onto the wooden floor of the scaffolding, a man wielding a radiation rifle rounded a corner and caught her in the act. Without wasting another moment, he raised his gun and was seconds away from pulling the trigger before Sister Emily calmly dropped him with a single burst of searing plasma fire which passed so close to the side of Piper’s face that it singed her hair and almost took a layer of skin off her cheek, the acrid stench of ozone lingering in her nostrils for a moment. The sound of the weapon’s discharge provoked disciples on the level above to descend towards them, rifles up and ready.

_Shit. Shit shit shit._

Realising stealth was no longer an option, Piper surged towards the first of the approaching cultists and unloaded a single bullet into his chest, the hollow-point round shattering his ribs and making him collapse in a boneless heap.

“The sacrifices are escaping! Stop them!” someone called out, his voice frantic. Avery loosed a volley of glowing green bullets from her rifle to try to silence him, but the man vanished before she could hit her target. 

Piper cursed under her breath, knowing that more would follow him – and so she fought onwards, keeping one eye on the ragged gaggle of prisoners and the other on the path ahead of her, all the while hoping against hope that Blue would still be there for her when she reached her destination.

When she came to eye-level with the concrete surrounding the _Nucleus_ , all she could see was carnage. The Children of Atom had apparently splintered down the middle – some were proclaiming their support for the High Confessor, and others declaring their loyalty to the Emissary, and that division was being marked in blood, bodies splayed on the ground where they had fallen. She had barely taken a step before one of the cultists spotted her and charged. “Blasphemer!” he screamed, drawing back his arm and preparing to slash at her with a rusty-edged scythe, its serrated blade splattered with bright droplets of fresh gore. He was halfway through his swing when he suddenly careened sideways, his wiry body folded in half by Zealot Ware’s muscular frame. When Ware had despatched the man with a blow to the side of the head from the butt of his rifle, he turned back to where Piper was standing. 

   “You all right?” he asked, his voice understandably urgent as he kept scanning around himself for any immediate threats.

“I’m fine,” Piper replied, “but I have the prisoners from the lower levels behind me. You need to help me get them out of here now, Ware.”

“The prisoners? But –” Ware began, before Piper cut him off sharply with a wave of her hand.

“The Emissary told me to help them. Now I’m asking you to help me.”

Ware looked conflicted for a moment and then nodded. “As the Emissary wills it,” he replied, before he rose to his feet and moved towards two other Children, saying “You two – with me, now!” As the three men disappeared swiftly from her field of vision, Piper hoped that Avery and Sister Emily would be smart enough not to riddle them with bullets before they could help the escapees out. 

And then, through the tangle of humanity, she saw her. Blue, her Blue, was lying on the concrete floor, barely moving, and Richter was looming over her like an executioner, his fists and knife dripping with blood. Piper trained her pistol on him for a moment, ready to end his assault permanently, before she realised that killing him would just make him a martyr in the eyes of those Children of Atom still loyal to Tektus. She cursed under her breath, holstered her gun and grabbed the small knife from her belt before breaking into a run towards where Richter was standing. Fortunately he was so focused on ending the Emissary once and for all that he did not hear her coming, and so she was able to get within touching distance before he even knew she was there. She took advantage of that by reversing her grip on her knife and driving the blade into Richter's unprotected neck right up to its base. The huge man roared in anger and rounded on her, his eyes blazing with fury and pain as he tore the tiny knife free from his ripped flesh and threw it to the ground.

“ _You_ ,” he snarled, his left hand instinctively pressed to the shallow wound in his neck, trickles of blood pulsing over his fingers. “I should have known you’d side with the Emissary. You follow her around just like a little puppy dog, after all.” He snorted contemptuously. “No matter – you side with a heretic, you _die_ with a heretic.” Then he stomped forwards, much faster than Piper had anticipated, slashing viciously at her with his bloodied knife. Piper evaded the swing as best she could, the toothed edge of the weapon missing her body and neatly slicing a piece out of her coat’s battered sleeve, but avoiding the arc of the blade left her open to Richter punching her in the face with his free hand. Pain flared in her mouth as the blow tore her lip open and caused her teeth to grind against each other to the point where she thought they might have broken, and her head became foggy as her vision started to swim. Her legs buckled and she stumbled backwards, dizzy and disoriented.

Richter sneered, a cold chuckle passing across his lips, and he advanced on her as she struggled to hold onto her equilibrium. He readied his blade, aiming for her stomach –

– but before he could guide the weapon home, Piper heard a dull, wet clunking sound. Through blurry eyes she saw Richter tottering forwards a couple of steps, his legs betraying him before he lost consciousness, a large welt blooming on the back of his scalp. Then, as her warped vision refocused itself, she saw Blue standing behind him, a heavy wrench hanging loosely from her left hand as she wobbled on her feet and clutched at her side with her other arm before falling to one knee, her breaths noisily scraping themselves from her lungs. She felt a pang of horror as she saw the blood soaking through Blue’s clothes and across her skin. Her lover’s eyes were swollen and bruised, and the angry discolouration and crumpled appearance of her right cheek and eye socket clearly indicated that they had been aggressively shattered. Piper had seen enough combat to recognise those kinds of wounds, and she knew that there was no quick fix that would be enough to heal them - a stimpak would reduce the swelling and the chance of the damage getting any worse, but that was all. She realised she had to get Blue to Knight-Captain Cade for surgery as soon as possible, but for now all she could do was try to get her mobile again. She bent down and helped Blue to lie on her back, and then reached into one of her ruined jacket’s numerous pockets, pulling out a single syringe and jamming its stub of a needle into the gaping wound on the other woman’s shoulder, fully emptying its contents directly into her bloodstream. She knew that it wasn’t an ideal location, but it was the most efficient one, and efficiency was the only thing she needed right now. _Come back, Blue,_ she pleaded silently. _Come back to me._

Her heart broke as Blue shrieked in agony, the stimpak’s chemicals entering the exposed, shredded muscle under her collarbone like fire, but almost instantaneously, the smaller cuts and bruises on her body began visibly zipping themselves closed and vanishing against her ashen-white skin. It was working. The other woman stirred, the inflamed skin around her eyes beginning to return to its normal colour underneath the crimson stains.

“Hey,” Blue croaked through blood-streaked lips, raising the slack fingers of her right hand upwards to trace a line down Piper’s cheek. Piper almost burst into tears, the chaos around her becoming little more than an afterthought as the woman she loved looked hazily back at her.

“Hey,” she said simply. “You want to get out of here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I'd try something a little different for this chapter. Normal service will most likely be resumed in the next instalment :)


	10. For Want Of A Nail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victory is in sight for Rachel and Piper, but at what cost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long - there were several knots in the way the story was heading that needed to be unpicked, and real life was getting in the way. Hopefully this will be worth the wait!

_Three stimpaks left._

Rachel could feel the fractured bones of her cheek and eye socket grinding against each other with every step she took, but the burning sensation of the sharp edges jabbing into her flesh was almost completely dulled by the large dose of Med-X Piper had forced on her, despite her slurred protests to the contrary. She usually hated painkillers because she felt they took her edge off and made her less responsive, but right now she was actually grateful for the lack of sensation, since Grand Zealot Richter’s assault had left her battered, bloody and exhausted, feeling like she was being held together by nothing but strength of will.

That was definitely what she needed right now, though, as the gaggle of ragged prisoners had begun to make their escape from the Children of Atom’s submarine base. Fortunately they weren’t alone any longer – Zealot Ware had organised a rearguard action of a dozen or so armed cultists who alternated between helping the less mobile members of the party and covering the escapees from the pursuing faction of Children still faithful to Tektus. Not that it had saved all of the captives, unfortunately – one of the Commonwealth settlers had caught a bullet in the back of his throat as he and his wife cleared the door of the base, and as his wife had instinctively stopped to try to help him, the loyalists had grabbed her and started dragging her back into the base. Seeing the settler struggling against the horde of hostile cultists, Captain Avery had aimed and fired her rifle without hesitation, putting several rounds through the woman’s head and body. Rachel had looked at her in momentary shock and disbelief, but all Avery had done to justify herself was to say “Better she die fast, not slow,” and then start moving again. As much as Rachel hadn’t wanted to agree with it, that explanation made immediate sense – more than once she’d had to make tough on-the-spot decisions regarding her soldiers as both a Brotherhood officer and as the general of the Minutemen, so she recognised the logic. No matter how many times she faced those kinds of choices, though, it never got any easier.

And so they had fled from the _Nucleus_ as fast as possible, towards the north, with a small force of Tektus’s disciples behind them and the dangers of the island in front, lurking in the thick, choking mist. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken long for the faithful of the _Nucleus_ to retreat back to their fortress – clearly they had decided that the numerous horrors of the island would take care of the renegades for them. When Rachel was sure the pursuit had ended, she led her bedraggled flock to the ruined drive-in at Eden Meadows and had given out all of the Rad-X and RadAway she’d found in her pockets to the sick Commonwealth settlers. It was enough to make them able to walk mostly unaided, but it wasn’t enough to get them back to anything resembling full health, so she had to hope that they would hold together long enough for Knight-Captain Cade to heal them properly. For now, though, she and Piper were the only things standing between them and disaster.

As the drive-in’s giant projector screen loomed ahead of them, its reflected light painting shapes on the ground in front of it, Rachel paused, coming to a complete stop and indicating that the former prisoners should do the same. She glanced at Piper and silently pointed towards the left side of the wide-open parking lot. Piper nodded, immediately understanding what Rachel wanted her to do, and moved silently towards the edge of the cracked, broken tarmac, her pistol raised and her finger hooked around its trigger. Rachel turned towards Captain Avery and said “Last time Piper and I were here we were attacked by a whole pack of ferals. Stay here and we’ll sweep the area to make sure they haven’t come back.” She attempted a reassuring smile but her shattered cheek’s protestations stopped her from doing so. Instead she simply reached out and briefly touched Avery’s callused hand to try to pep her up.

Visibly disgusted, Avery drew her hand back and snorted in disbelief. “Don’t be so damn stupid, mainlander. You can barely stand,” she said, before she held up her rifle. “Besides, I have a better weapon than you. Let me go.”

“I’m fine,” Rachel snapped sharply, every word feeling like knives dragging themselves across the inside of her face, “and that better weapon needs to stay here; you have to protect the group. We’ve got back-up now, but Piper and I can still move faster on our own.” She shrugged, deciding to offer a concession. “If we need you, we’ll holler. Okay?”

Avery scowled. “Fine.” For a fleeting moment, her lined, severe features softened. “Be careful.”

Rachel gave the Captain a silent nod of acknowledgement as she moved in the opposite direction to Piper, keeping the rifle she’d taken from the corpse of one of the fallen Children in the _Nucleus_ at eye level, its stock braced snugly into her shoulder, after first popping open the pistol-holster at her waist.

Her worst fears were confirmed when she advanced far enough into the drive-in to see a pack of ghouls feasting on the corpse of a giant angler. They had obviously mobbed it to death and then dragged its body from the rusting van it had been using as a shelter, and now they were greedily stuffing chunks of its rich, fatty meat down their throats. As Rachel crept closer to them, she could hear their rasping, guttural growls as they squabbled over the more succulent parts of the carcass, hissing and jealously gnashing their jagged teeth at each other in between mouthfuls. She cursed under her breath when she realised she didn’t have any grenades. A single explosion would have killed or incapacitated at least half of the ghouls in an instant.

_Old-fashioned way it is, then,_ she thought sourly, taking cover behind the rust-encrusted remains of a Corvega automobile. _Show time._

When she was sure she was out of the horde’s line of sight, she lined up a shot and squeezed her trigger slowly, hitting one of the ghouls loitering on the outer edge of the feeding frenzy squarely in the centre of its back. Dead before its brain even registered that its chest was now non-existent, the withered feral slumped forwards onto another ghoul that was elbow-deep in angler guts, causing the rest of the pack to turn their attention to where the shot had come from, sniffing at the air to try to catch any kind of clues. In their moment of confusion, Rachel heard the bark of a solitary pistol shot, and an instant later, she saw another ghoul drop to the ground and lie there gurgling and writhing in pain, its right knee shattered to splinters. A second shot reduced the creature’s head to a red smear on the ground, and the pack of ghouls became even more confused and frantic as they tried to work out from where they were being attacked.

Rachel used the ghouls’ disorientation to move closer to them, shouldering her rifle for a moment so that she could adjust her belt and make her chain-dagger easier to access. Stealth was one thing, but being able to defend herself against feral ghouls at both long and short range was just as important. She’d learned to her cost that ferals frequently attacked faster and more viciously than fully human foes, their sharp claws and teeth always ready to rend flesh from bone – the large bite-mark scar in the centre of her left forearm bore harsh witness to that – so it was wise to have every weapon just a fingertip away, especially when she wasn’t enclosed in her full suit of Brotherhood plate and didn’t have that extra layer of protection to rely on. 

When she’d finished shifting her dagger, she unhooked her rifle again and began creeping forwards carefully, taking the opportunity to pick off a couple more of the shambling beasts as they started to lope around in search of their attackers, having completely forgotten about their still largely-intact kill. With their rabid scramble for food over for the moment, the swarm of ghouls was once again united behind a single goal, and that made them infinitely more dangerous. Rachel briefly looked over to where Piper was crouching behind some jagged metal debris, seeing the reporter taking aim at another of their targets, her pistol barking twice in quick succession and hitting an unfortunate ghoul in the shoulder and throat. Taking advantage of the moment, Rachel took another few steps forward, keeping as silent as possible  –

– until a sharp snap came from beneath her boot, a brittle twig breaking in half under her weight. The feral closest to her whipped its head around as it heard the noise, ropes of drool rapidly spilling from its mouth and its yellow eyes filling with bottomless rage. An instant later it charged, growling and slobbering as it reached out towards her with its broken, ragged talons, ready to tear her to pieces and cram them between its teeth. Rachel put a bullet through one of its eyes, causing it to collapse bonelessly to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, but it was only the first of the onrushing tide of rotting flesh that had begun to surge toward her. She began to track backwards, unloading bullet after bullet into the wall of bodies until her rifle cycled dry with a metallic click. She cursed, throwing it contemptuously to the ground before drawing her pistol and dropping another three of the blood-maddened ferals before they got too close for her to properly line up her shots. Firing randomly into the throng until that weapon was empty as well, she fell back while also readying her chain-dagger to fend off those ghouls closest to her. When the first of them lunged at her, she slashed at its outstretched arm, the teeth of the blade carving a bloody chunk out of its flesh and painting the ground with droplets of liquefied, mushy gristle. Undeterred by the fact that its right hand was almost completely severed, the dead-eyed monster sprang forwards without hesitation, hissing and growling as it did so. Its jaws clamped down hard onto Rachel’s collarbone as it barrelled her to the ground, close to the still-tender spot where Grand Zealot Richter had stabbed her, and then ripped a mouthful of her flesh free. It didn’t get a chance to enjoy its morsel, though – an instant after it had raised its head to let the mouthful of fresh meat slide down its gullet, the side of its skull imploded as a pistol round punched through its temple. Her face spotted with blood from both the ghoul and herself, Rachel risked a sideways glance to see where the shot had come from, and saw Zealots Ware and Theil advancing shoulder to shoulder, their rifles firing in short, controlled bursts. When the last of the ghouls had been despatched, Zealot Ware knelt down beside her, a look of concern etched on his craggy features. “You know, Emissary, you could have sent us in first. We’re yours to command – why not take some weight off your shoulders and let Theil and me handle things like this?”

Even through the pain of the sizeable bite wound, Rachel couldn’t stop herself from laughing before she wiped the blood off her face with her sleeve, immediately wincing as her broken face protested at her amusement. “Thanks for the offer, Ware, but like my husband always used to tell me: the leader who stays in the rear takes it in the rear. ” She paused, feeling a touch of embarrassment burning briefly across her cheeks. “He never was much good with words, but I know what he meant. I’m a leader – I should lead. Set an example. Be someone who inspires others.” Reaching into a pocket she drew out a stimpak, jabbing the needle into the skin near her injury and pushing the plunger, releasing the contents of the syringe into her body. In a few seconds the bite mark was nothing more than an irregular oval of ridged, puckered tissue, another badge of honour to accompany the generous tally of scars already scattered across her body, and the pain in her face faded to a dull ache again as the fractured bones knitted themselves a little closer together. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll try to remember to ask you to do this next time. No promises, though.”

Ware raised his eyebrows. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

“We’ll see,” Rachel told him. “Now how about we start getting these people somewhere they can get some decent rest?”

_Two stimpaks left._

* * *

 

_One stimpak left._

Rachel watched as the smaller wounds of the bloodied settler sealed in moments after the stimpak’s almost miraculous elixir had begun to flow through him. After making camp at the drive-in overnight, the group had been making good progress until they had run into a swarm of hungry mirelurks. One of them, a heavily-scarred hunter with thick ropes of acidic saliva dripping from its clicking mandibles, had managed to almost disembowel one of the weaker escapees because he had reacted too slowly to escape its brutal pincers. Had it not been for the swift actions of a pair of her congregation, who had bisected the beast with two bursts of irradiated rifle bullets, he would have been dead in a heartbeat. As it was, he’d been lucky to only lose a hand, his arm now ending in a ragged stump that Sister Emily had bound with several strips of cloth she’d torn from her own robes. He would still need qualified medical attention to really help the healing process, of course – and she pitied Knight-Captain Cade a little for that, considering how busy he was going to be once all the prisoners had been evacuated to the _Prydwen_ – but for now a makeshift bandage would have to suffice.

Kneeling down beside the man, Rachel entwined the fingers of his remaining hand between her own and squeezed them tightly, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. “You’re going to be fine,” she said, the words ringing hollow in her ears even as she spoke them. “I need you to stay strong for me now, okay? The Brotherhood of Steel will be there for us when we get to the mainland, I promise. We’ll make sure you get well again.”

“The Brotherhood of Steel?” the man mumbled through pale lips, a look of confusion briefly contorting his waxy, unresponsive face. “Didn’t think you people cared about us ordinary folks.”

Rachel shook her head emphatically. “Believe me when I tell you that the Brotherhood cares about everyone in the Commonwealth,” she said, slipping her tattered jacket carefully off her shoulders and rolling up the sleeve of her undershirt to reveal the emblem of the Brotherhood on her shoulder before gesturing to the Latin phrase etched indelibly into her skin underneath it. “See these words here? ’Ad victoriam’ is our motto – it means ‘to victory’. When we all get back to the Commonwealth, that’ll be our victory, and I want you to be there to see it.” She looked to one side, meeting Sister Emily’s concerned gaze as she did so. “Take care of him the best you can, sister.”

“As you command, Emissary,” Sister Emily said, bowing her head for a moment, before she turned her attention back to the settler, who had mercifully drifted off into unconsciousness, and wiped his brow free of sweat with her sleeve. As Rachel began walking away, she heard the younger woman quickly barking instructions at two other Children, telling them to fashion a stretcher and place the wounded man on it so he could be moved more easily, and for a moment she felt a little involuntary twinge of pride. Perhaps Piper had been right about her wanting a disciple after all – although given the choice she would have preferred the term ‘aspirant’, considering her loyalty lay more with Elder Maxson and the technology of the Brotherhood than with the convoluted mysticism of Atom’s followers. Either way, it was reassuring to have a steady hand like Sister Emily at her side.

_Maybe I should ask her if she wants to sign up,_ she thought, a little absently. _At least I know she can follow orders well._ She shook that notion from her mind almost instantly and refocused her attention on the rest of her charges. Most of them looked exhausted, their hunched and wilted body language saying more than any words could at that point. As she tried to assess the situation as fully as she could, she found Piper at her side, a deeply concerned frown creasing her forehead and casting a shadow across her cheeks, which were already stained with faint trails of viscous green mirelurk blood. “I’m worried about these people, Blue,” she said in a low, soft tone. “I don’t think any of them have had anything decent to eat in days.”

Rachel nodded in agreement. “You’re probably right,” she said, before she aimed a gesture of her thumb towards the numerous mirelurk corpses strewn around inside the defence perimeter that Ware and Theil had established with around half a dozen of their subordinates. “Good thing we have a big pile of food there, right?”

“As long as you’re doing the cooking? Absolutely,” Piper said, cracking a brief smile which instantly lifted Rachel’s mood, as Piper’s smiles almost always did. “Never could master seafood myself – too much preparation time involved for a reporter on the road all the time, you know? At least with a mole-rat you can just slice it up and have it ready to go in half an hour.”

“Sure,” Rachel began, “but doesn’t that get boring after a while?”

“You should know me better than this by now, Blue,” Piper replied, chuckling. “Practicality beats variety every time.”

“I guess so,” Rachel said, raising her eyebrows briefly before she got to her feet and drew her chain-blade. “Let me gather up a few people and we can get dinner going…”

* * *

 

About an hour and a half later, Rachel was sat around a large campfire and chewing on one of a handful of ragged, bite-sized pieces of roasted mirelurk meat from the feast which she and several members of her congregation (as well as a few of the Commonwealth settlers) had helped to prepare. The misshapen baubles of pale white flesh were a little rubbery and salty underneath their crispy exterior, but that was par for the course with this kind of food, so she had let it go. However she found the meat, though, it seemed the former prisoners were grateful for it. Some of them were actually starting to relax and look cheerful as they devoured their meals, which lifted Rachel’s mood to no end. She even felt her own bunched muscles loosening up a little for what seemed like the first time in years as Piper slid closer to her and rested her head on her shoulder. She set down the greasy chunk of mirelurk carapace she’d been using as a makeshift plate and put her arm around her girlfriend, kissing her on the forehead almost reflexively as she drew the smaller woman to her, trying to shield her from the evening’s gathering chill. 

“You okay, Blue?” Piper asked, looking up at Rachel with a curious expression on her face. “Cap for your thoughts?”

Rachel smiled, gently threading her fingers through Piper’s as she did so. “Just enjoying the fire and the company, that’s all.” She laughed. “The food wasn’t bad, either, if I do say so myself.”

“I gotta say, you do make good mirelurk cakes,” Piper agreed. “Still not convinced it’s better than mole-rat, though.”

“You’re a lost cause, Piper Wright, you realise that?”

“Yeah,” Piper said, “but I also realise there’s nobody else I’d rather be lost with.”

“You always know just what to say, don’t you?"

“So people tell me,” Piper replied, examining the nails of her free hand casually. “In between telling me to stop printing lies or go jump off a cliff, anyway.”

“I guess I’d better stop doing that, then, huh?” Rachel asked, a smile quirking itself across her lips for a moment.

“That would be nice, yeah,” Piper said, caressing the cusp of Rachel’s jawline before she gently turned the other woman’s face towards her and softly pressed their lips together for a moment. “Consider that an incentive.”

“I just might do that,” Rachel told her, briefly running a hand through Piper’s hair. “You’re pretty persuasive, after all.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Piper traced a single fingertip down the bridge of Rachel’s nose before tapping its tip playfully. “It does make my job a lot easier, let's face it.”

Before Rachel could respond, however, she heard a yell from the other end of the camp, a single word full of terror and urgency.

_“Deathclaw!”_

Immediately Rachel scrambled to her feet, cursing herself for allowing herself to believe even for a moment that she was safe. She grabbed her rifle and swung around to try to determine where the shout had come from, and then she saw the hulking mass of the beast encroaching on the edge of the camp. As large as it was, even through the distance between her and the monster, she saw that the deathclaw’s horns were not as fully-formed as they should have been, indicating that it was most likely an adolescent which had not yet learned that large groups of armed humans were usually something to be avoided. She guessed it had been drawn to their location by the smell of the mound of butchered mirelurk carcasses while looking for an easy meal, and hadn’t expected to find so many other hungry mouths willing to fight to defend their kill. The brute loped inside the defence perimeter, shrugging off individual bullets without a second thought as they either ricocheted off or lodged themselves into its thick armoured hide, and started to lash out at any of her flock foolish enough to get within range of its meat-cleaver talons.

Feeling a familiar sense of resolve clamping down on her shoulders again, a twinge of pain sparking through her cheek as it did so, Rachel glanced briefly at Piper, who had already unholstered her own gun. “Divide and conquer again?” she suggested, gesturing towards the lumbering monstrosity as it impaled an unlucky Child of Atom directly through the stomach, tore his twitching body in half and began slurping his warm, steaming guts from his upper torso after it had casually tossed his detached, mangled legs aside like a broken toy. Rachel felt her gorge rise watching the deathclaw feasting on its prey, but she fought back the urge to vomit, nevertheless still feeling the acidic sting of bile at the back of her throat. Using the monster’s momentary distraction to circle around it, she raised her rifle, exhaled gently and then unloaded a short, controlled burst towards the small gap in its armour. Most of the bullets bounced back off the thick interconnected plates, but two rounds managed to hit the precise divide between two sections of the tough protective tissue, burying themselves deep into the muscle beneath it. 

The deathclaw bellowed, enraged, and flung away what was left of the cultist’s body as it turned to face her. It snorted out a single breath and cocked its head a little, as if it couldn’t quite fathom why a single small creature would dare to challenge it. Then it bared its bloodied fangs, flexed its claws and prepared to charge, before Piper’s gun barked out a single shot behind it, the round serving as little more than a distraction – but an effective distraction nevertheless, as the deathclaw glared balefully in the direction the attack had come from, snarling in annoyance and spraying thick ropes of pink-tinged drool down its chin. Rachel wasn’t sure if this particular tactic would work as well against the deathclaw as it had against the ghouls at the drive-in, but anything that allowed her flock to evacuate the settlers and Far Harbor residents as quickly as possible was worth a try. She advanced cautiously on the creature, loosing another couple of rounds towards it, but this time only causing the bullets to bounce off its armour. The deathclaw whirled around to face her again, and judging by the rage burning in its yellow eyes, the last of its patience had finally evaporated. It broke into a charge then, its footfalls almost shaking the ground. In between every thunderous impact of the monster’s taloned feet, Rachel could hear Piper’s pistol firing in a panicky, staccato fashion as she tried unsuccessfully to draw the deathclaw’s attention back to her.

The brute had picked its target, it seemed, and this time trying to distract the enemy was not going to pay off. Rachel steeled herself for the deathclaw’s attack, but before it could unleash its murderous rage, a fusillade of rifle fire rang out from behind her. She risked a glance backwards as the deathclaw reeled from the sustained barrage that was being poured onto it. Zealots Ware and Theil, along with Sister Emily and Brother Joseph, were advancing as part of a tight formation formed by her disciples. Their unrelenting barrage of bullets and plasma fire caused the giant creature to stumble backwards for a moment, screeching in frustration, before it turned tail and began padding swiftly away in the opposite direction. Apparently it had decided that the mound of free mirelurk meat was not worth being shot at and had chosen to make its escape before it got hurt any further.

As it moved off over a rise about fifty metres away from the camp, Zealot Ware shouldered his rifle and bowed his head respectfully. “I told you, Emissary,” he began, “Zealot Theil and I would handle this kind of thing ourselves from now on. I didn’t want to make myself a liar.”

“Thank you, Ware,” Rachel said, taking his right hand in a firm handshake before briefly embracing him. “Just this once I’ll let you save the day.”

Ware’s craggy face broke into a rare smile as she drew herself back. “The Emissary blesses me with her gratitude. I’ll try not to waste it.”

He was about to speak again when a deafening howl sounded out from just beyond the rise the young monster had retreated behind, and moments later a massive deathclaw a full head taller than the adolescent they thought they had driven off stalked out into view, the smaller animal following behind it. Looking at the fully-developed horns and the bright dappled markings on the larger beast’s scar-covered hide, Rachel could see it was an older female, very probably the parent of the youngster trying to teach it how to hunt on its own. If she had to guess, the matriarch had seen what its offspring could do and was not impressed, so now it was going to give its hapless young a demonstration of how a hunt ought to go. 

“Fall back!” Rachel cried as loudly as she could, realising that two deathclaws working in tandem was not a threat to be treated lightly, especially with the number of sick and wounded settlers. Better to let the monsters have their free meal than to fight them and end up as extra meat. “Fall back, now!”

As the rest of her congregation scrambled to evacuate the camp as quickly as possible, Rachel pointed towards the two monsters and said “We need to make sure those things head straight for the mirelurk shells instead of following us. Pull back in pairs, keep some distance between us and keep your fingers on the trigger, but don’t fire unless you absolutely have to. No need for any more losses.”

Ware and Theil nodded in acknowledgement, raising their weapons to cover Sister Emily and Brother Joseph as they started to retreat. After a couple of minutes, Ware and Theil followed suit, leaving Rachel and Piper to watch the deathclaws amble through the remains of the camp, their nostrils flaring as they padded towards the pile of mirelurk carcasses. The mother huffed at her offspring, indicating for it to stay behind her. When she was sure that the youngster would stay still, she stalked forwards and picked up the mirelurk corpse closest to her, sniffing the carcass curiously and licking it once or twice as if she was making absolutely sure it was edible. Then she began tearing the body apart, throwing away the hard carapace and digging into the entrails with her snout, growling to herself in a satisfied fashion between messy mouthfuls of greenish flesh. When she had finished her meal, she swung around and called out to her youngster to let it know everything was safe. The youngster cocked its head slightly before it approached the waiting banquet, and then settled on its haunches to tuck in.

“Looks like they’re busy, Blue,” Piper said. “Let’s go.”

“Good idea,” Rachel agreed, pushing herself to her feet and getting ready to rejoin the rest of the group. “Guess they’ll be busy for a while.”

Unfortunately, the moment she chose to start moving was the moment the deathclaw youngster angled its head up to swallow a large chunk of mirelurk meat, and then spotted her and Piper. In an instant, furious, it threw its meal aside and bellowed at the women as they tried to retreat. The mother deathclaw looked in the direction her offspring had indicated, pausing before she roared and launched herself into a charge, obviously angry at the puny creatures who had thwarted her young’s hunt. The mother picked up speed in the blink of an eye, a juggernaut of teeth and claws, thundering towards Rachel and Piper with murder in her eyes. She swiped at Rachel with such force that Rachel was lifted clean off her feet and thrown through the air, three long, searing lines of pain blossoming diagonally along the front of her body at the same time. 

She skidded several metres when she met the ground, feeling three ribs crack as she did so. Breathing became agonising. Her vision was full of stars. Her equilibrium was completely scrambled. Concepts of up and down, of past and future, became meaningless. Blood filled her mouth, hot and metallic against her tongue. All she could hear was the triumphant, guttural roar of the monster that would shortly be devouring her. Through her disorientation, she braced herself for the white-hot pain of the mother deathclaw’s jaws clamping around her body and ripping her into tiny pieces, but it never came.

Instead, she felt a hand gripping her shoulder. It took a few moments for her ears to stop ringing and for her vision to coalesce into something more clear than an unruly swirl of colour, at which point she found herself lying on a makeshift stretcher. She saw Piper kneeling at her side, an anxious look on her face. Her lips were moving but Rachel’s ears were so full of static that she couldn’t hear her until the clutter began to fade.

“ – can you hear me?” Piper said, her voice unusually frail. “Give me a sign you’re okay, Blue. _Please._ ”

Rachel tried to speak but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate at first, a liquid gurgle all it could initially manage. Nevertheless it was enough for Piper’s tear-filled eyes to brighten just a little. She grasped Rachel’s limp left hand and kissed it reverently. “Oh, thank God,” the younger woman breathed. “Stay still. We’ll keep you safe, I promise.” She reached into Rachel’s jacket and drew out her last stimpak, jabbing it into Rachel’s arm and pressing down the plunger. Once again she found herself thanking whoever invented stimpaks as she felt her wounds sealing themselves. Her cracked ribs still hurt like hell, but at least the pain was numbed a little.

“Where are we?” Rachel slurred as her mouth began grudgingly responding again. “How long was I out? What happened to the deathclaw?” As her vision continued to gather itself she saw Zealots Ware and Theil standing to either side of her, with Sister Emily flanking them, her hands clasped so tightly together that her knuckles were almost glowing white. The young girl was mumbling a constant stream of prayers under her breath, her lips moving almost imperceptibly quickly as she squeezed her fingers almost to the point where she might tear them off.

“We’re about half a day’s travel away from Far Harbor, you’ve been asleep for almost six hours,” Ware began, “and from what we can tell, it looked like that deathclaw just wanted to teach you a lesson about not interfering with its kids. The way you fell seemed to make it think you were dead, so it went back to its food instead of attacking anyone else.” He glanced down at his rifle, patting it almost affectionately. “We helped put any… _lingering doubts_ to rest, though.” Another uncharacteristic smile. “That’s two you owe me, Emissary.”

“I guess so,” Rachel began, before she tried to rise and coughed up a lump of bloody mucus. 

“Easy, easy,” Piper admonished her. “Stay still. You need to let that stimpak take effect first.”

“Gladly,” Rachel said, feeling the spittle spill down her chin before Piper drew her handkerchief out of her coat’s sleeve and used it to wipe the pinkish fluid away.

“There you go,” she said, smiling. “Beautiful again. Now you let us carry you to the dock, and then we’ll be back in the Commonwealth before you know it, honey. I promise.”

_No stimpaks left._

* * *

 

_No stimpaks left._

It had taken Rachel’s flock a little longer to reach Far Harbor then Ware had anticipated, thanks to an ambush set by a pack of radiation-enhanced wolves. Rachel had wished she could have taken part but her body felt like a well-worn punching bag and she had had to lie helplessly while Piper and Sister Emily covered her prone form, cutting down several of the pack that tried to get to her. Now they had arrived at the dock after Ware had scouted ahead, bringing news of the Emissary’s condition to the Children still occupying the town. Some of them had protested, demanding that they be allowed to nurse her back to health, but Ware had insisted that they let her return to the Commonwealth for proper treatment. Zealot Theil and Sister Emily had carried her onto the dock where the faithful crowded around her in shock. In a hoarse, throaty voice she had told them that she had let the residents of Far Harbor return to their home, and that they should not be harmed, but rather welcomed back as brothers and sisters, and then she had told her flock from the _Nucleus_ to stay with them to rebuild the town, make it stronger, and help keep it safe.

She didn’t know how long that truce would hold, but she hoped it would be enough to establish a more secure island, at least for the moment. Now she lay on the deck of Kenji Nakano’s automated boat, which was being followed by Allen Lee’s fishing vessel, full of the kidnapped settlers. Unsurprisingly, Allen had not been pleased to have his boat borrowed, but had agreed on the insistence of Captain Avery. She supposed he would be hoping this was the last time he would ever see her, which gave her a little amusement to distract her from her pain.

Upon arriving at the dock outside the Nakano residence, Piper and Sister Emily helped Rachel to lie on their stretcher while the rest of the settlers disembarked, relief at finally being home etching itself all over their haggard features. As they carried Rachel off the deck, all three members of the Nakano family emerged from their house, looking shocked and awed by the small crowd. “Bring her inside,” Kenji said quickly. “We can give her a place to rest.”

“No,” Rachel said shakily, pushing herself into a sitting position. “I need to use Kasumi’s radio to call the _Prydwen –”_ A fit of coughing interrupted her words, and Piper instinctively reached out to try to help her get through the stabbing pain in her chest. Rachel clung to her as she tried to stand and kept holding on as the two of them climbed the stairs to Kasumi’s room. Sitting down next to the radio she picked up the microphone and tuned the radio carefully to the Brotherhood’s unique frequency. “ _Prydwen_ Actual, this is Survivor. Do you copy, over?” she began, but got only static in return. “I say again, _Prydwen_ Actual, this is Survivor. Please respond, over.”

For a few moments it seemed like nothing would come of the transmission, but then a voice crackled through on the other end. “ _Prydwen_ Actual to Survivor, we read you. It’s good to hear your voice again, ma’am.” She recognised the voice as that of Initiate Ellis, a young former farmer who she had personally recruited into the ranks of the Brotherhood after the fall of the Institute. She liked him, even if he was a little over-excited in his approach to his duties and hadn’t quite attained the right level of discipline necessary for his posting. Still, it was good to hear any familiar voice from the _Prydwen_ , so she felt a tangible sense of relief. “What can we do for you, over?”

“ _Prydwen_ Actual, I need immediate evac – I have wounded civilians here who need treatment ASAP. Send as many Vertibirds as you can spare, over.”

“Acknowledged, Survivor,” Initiate Ellis said. “Send us your coordinates and we’ll have you back here in no time, over.”

Rachel checked her Pip-Boy’s map for a moment and then relayed her position. “Get here as soon as you can, _Prydwen_ Actual. These people really need our help, over.”

“We’ll try, Survivor. Over and out.”

As the radio fell silent, Rachel felt Piper’s arms crossing themselves over her shoulders, and felt her lover’s lips delicately brushing her cheek. “You did it, Blue. You saved the day.”

“I hope so,” Rachel said, exhaling heavily. “I guess all we can do now is sit and wait.”

“Fine by me,” Piper replied. “Wanna make out to pass the time?”

“Very tempting,” Rachel said, “but I should check on the settlers first. They need to be ready to leave as soon as those Vertibirds arrive.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “Spoilsport.”

“I’m in command. It comes with the territory.” She stood and held out her hand. “Help me downstairs, please?” Piper grasped her fingers and then drew her closer, draping Rachel’s arm over her shoulder before supporting her as the two women moved back downstairs.

As soon as they made it back into the lounge, they found Brother Joseph and Sister Emily waiting for them. Rachel let go of Piper and stepped towards the two allies who had made her insane plan viable.

She turned to look at Piper. “Can you give us a moment alone?” she asked.

“Sure,” Piper agreed. “I’ll be just outside. I need a cigarette anyway.” She opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, and, sensing Rachel’s need for privacy, the three members of the Nakano family followed suit.

When they were alone, Rachel embraced both of her disciples. “You two did well today,” she said, feeling a twinge of pride. “I’m sure you made Atom very proud.”

“Thank you, Emissary,” Sister Emily whispered, her head still angled towards the floor. “You honour me.” Rachel touched her fingers to the younger woman’s chin and lifted it up so that she could meet her gaze as warmly as possible.

“You honour yourself, sister,” she said firmly. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Then she turned to Brother Joseph, putting a hand on his shoulder. “And you did just as well, brother. Atom smiles on y–”

The gunshot was deafening, a blazing pain spreading through her guts. She looked down and saw the pistol in Brother Joseph’s hand. He smiled a gargoyle smile, sadistic glee in his eyes. “Did you really think I trusted you, ‘Emissary’?” he gloated, before he turned his head and looked at Sister Emily, whose horrified expression spoke volumes. “Time to go back to the _Nucleus_ , sister,” he said. “Tektus will need us to rebuild. Help me finish off this pretender and we can be home again within a few days.” Rachel felt her legs folding beneath her until she was on her knees, the bullet wound in her stomach tearing slightly as she hit the ground. Brother Joseph clicked back the hammer on his pistol and pointed it directly at Rachel’s heart. “We’ll make Atom’s will a reality together, just like we always dreamed.”

“No,” Sister Emily snarled, tears flowing down her face as she drew her plasma pistol and curled her finger around the trigger. “No, brother. If you kill the Emissary, I swear to Atom I’ll kill you here and now. I swear it.” She sniffed back a trickle of fluid from her nose. “I mean it, brother. Don’t make me choose.”

Brother Joseph smirked. “You wouldn’t dare. I know how you feel about me. You couldn’t kill me even if you wanted to –” Before he could even finish speaking, his head became wreathed in searing plasma which swiftly turned his flesh to sizzling mush. The smell filled Rachel’s nostrils over and above the scent of her own blood, which flowed over her hands as she clutched at her belly. She heard the front door being flung open as Sister Emily fell to the ground, wailing as she put her head in her hands, Piper rushing to her side and immediately cradling her as she felt her thoughts ebbing away. 

   “Don’t die on me, Blue,” she pleaded. “Not now. Not when we’re so close.” Rachel felt her eyelids fluttering, the world going dark and cold. As consciousness slipped away from her, she heard Piper’s desperate begging. “Come back to me, Blue. Come back to me.”

_No stimpaks left._

_No stimpaks left._


	11. No Way Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper is used to her own life being in danger, but seeing Blue that way never gets any easier, no matter how many times it happens.

Piper watched helplessly as Blue was loaded onto a stretcher and moved tentatively onto a vertibird, Brotherhood field medics fitting an oxygen mask onto her grey-tinged, crimson-speckled face and connecting a drip to her arm, packing her ragged gut wound with gauze and trying to staunch the blood pulsing inexorably from her body so that she could be as stable as possible during her evacuation to the _Prydwen._ Piper had never felt so redundant in her life – all she could do was sit by Blue’s side and hold her limp and unresponsive hand tightly, so tightly that her knuckles were bleached white. _Don’t die, Blue,_ she kept repeating to herself, feeling desperation chewing relentlessly at her guts like a hungry animal stripping a carcass.

The ride to the _Prydwen_ felt like it took an eternity, the mighty airship’s medical staff immediately rushing to the aid of the field medics as they scrambled to get Blue to Knight-Captain Cade’s surgical table before she bled out on her stretcher. When she had been prepped for the operation, Cade shooed everyone out except his most senior assistant, sealing the medical bay as tightly as possible. 

Hours went by as Piper sat in the mess hall alone, or so it seemed. Sure, there were other members of the Brotherhood all around her – some of them even tried to engage with her to offer support – but she felt completely detached from her surroundings, unable to really connect with the men and women trying to keep her spirits up. She even felt one of them drape a blanket over her shoulders in an attempt to make her more comfortable, but eventually they realised they weren’t getting through to her and left her to her own devices, letting her stew in her own thoughts. She lost count of how many cigarettes she had smoked and how many bottles of lukewarm Nuka-Cola she had drunk, the twin tastes of tobacco and sugar mingling thickly on her tongue. All she could think about was the horrible possibility that the woman she loved might bleed to death only a few metres away from her, and she would be completely powerless to stop it. That thought terrified her more than anything she could remember.

Her introspection was only broken when she felt a hand on her shoulder, making her come back to reality with a start, her heart leaping into her mouth in an instant. She looked up with her red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes and found herself meeting the piercing gaze of Elder Maxson, an uncharacteristic expression of concern on his scarred face.

Piper scowled. “Go away, _Arthur_ ,” she snarled contemptuously. “I don’t need you to patronise me right now.”

“I’m not here to patronise you, Miss Wright,” Maxson said, taking a seat on the opposite side of the table to her. When Piper stood up and tried to move away, he reached out and took hold of her left wrist as gently as he could, drawing her back down to her seat. “I know you disapprove of the Brotherhood’s methods, but believe me when I tell you that Sentinel Adams – Rachel – is one of the finest officers under my command, and one of the few people I would feel confident enough to call a friend. I care about her a great deal, and from what the rescued settlers and medical staff told me, the only reason she’s back on board this ship at all is because you kept her alive more than once. It seems her faith in you was well-placed, so thank you. I owe you an apology.”

“I don’t want your gratitude _or_ your apologies!” Piper snapped, yanking her hand back. “I want my best friend not to die just because she decided to follow you!” She turned and started to stalk away, fury bubbling dangerously at the corners of her thoughts.

She hadn’t made it more than a few steps before Maxson exclaimed “She’s not going to die, you know. The surgery was a complete success.”

Those few words froze Piper in place for a moment, before she rounded on Maxson again, her curiosity getting the better of her. “How do you  – ”

“Knight-Captain Cade contacted me to let me know he had finished operating on her ten minutes before I came here to find you,” Maxson explained, standing and walking around the table to look her directly in the eye as he spoke. “I wanted to give you the good news myself.”

Piper felt a lurching sensation in her gut that she hoped was relief. “She’s out of surgery? Can I see her?”

“You’d have to ask Cade that, I’m afraid,” Maxson said with a shrug. “He may want to let her rest.” He paused. “For whatever it’s worth, I hope he lets you see her.”

“So do I,” Piper replied, before she experienced a bizarre twinge of guilt for her treatment of the Elder she usually felt at best ambivalent towards. “Thank you – for coming to find me, I mean.”

Maxson folded his arms. “You’re welcome,” he said in a tone that Piper guessed was supposed to be aloof, but which she could tell was tinged with a sense of relief. Maybe he had a soul under all that Brotherhood dogma after all.

She wasn’t exactly going to hold her breath about that, though. 

Excusing herself briefly, she made her way to the medical bay, her heart rising into the back of her throat so hard she almost felt she might choke on it. Just before she reached the entrance she took a deep breath, wiped at her eyes, smoothed out her hair and adjusted her hat nervously before she passed through the doorway, almost bumping directly into Knight-Captain Cade as she did so. “I’m sorry,” she said hurriedly. “I didn’t think you’d –”

“It’s all right, miss. No harm done,” Cade said in a calming tone. “I suppose you’re here to visit Sentinel Adams, yes?” He gestured to the bed furthest away from the door, which had been separated from the rest of the bay by several curtains. “She’s just through there. Don’t expect any kind of conversation, though; I decided to keep her under sedation for at least the next few hours. It’ll give her body some time to adjust to the stitches.”

“Can’t you just use a stimpak?” Piper asked, her reporter’s curiosity getting the better of her for a moment.

Cade sighed. “In a word? No. Stimpaks are good when you need a quick fix out in the field, but behind the lines I usually prefer to use more… traditional methods, methods which don’t involve speeding up the body’s metabolism to borderline-dangerous levels. At this point what Sentinel Adams requires the most is rest, so my medical judgement is that I will let her sleep. But then again, I suppose you’re not really here for my medical judgement, so you can sit with her as long as you like – just tell me when you’re done so I can close off the area again.” He drew back the curtain to reveal Blue hooked up to a ventilator, her chest and arms swathed in bandages and fresh stitches laid across the skin of her torso like railroad tracks, holding together the long, thin wounds left by the mother deathclaw's talons. The entire right side of her face looked angry and reddened but otherwise intact, with the smooth lines of her cheek restored and repaired. Piper sat down in the single seat by the side of the bed, after she had reached out and took hold of Blue’s wrist gently, feeling her lover’s heartbeat pulsing with a slow but strong rhythm underneath her fingertips. It was the most beautiful sensation she’d ever experienced. 

“Oh, Blue…” she murmured almost inaudibly. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I’ll… leave you to it,” Cade said, and began to turn away from her before he abruptly stopped and began rummaging in his pocket for something. “Oh yes, I almost forgot – these fell out of her jacket when I was prepping her for surgery. I think she must have intended to give them to you.” He reached out and pressed something into her palm before he took up a spot just outside of the medical bay in order to give her some privacy.

Piper looked down at what Cade had given her. In her hand was a small box wrapped in a ragged, crumpled piece of paper, which was edged in places with traces of crusted blood. Frowning, she unfolded the paper and saw a cacophony of scribbled notes written in hurried pencil scrawlings, several lines struck through with thick, decisive strokes. Intrigued, she glanced over them, and her eyes widened in shock, her heart leaping into her mouth as she tried to process what she was reading.

 

_Proposal Ideas_

 

 ~~ _At home?_ ~~ _Too ordinary_

~~ _Moonlight boat ride?_ ~~ _Too cliche_

~~ _Picnic in Sanctuary Hills?_ ~~ _Too sappy_

~~ _Romantic dinner in Diamond City/Goodneighbor/Last Plank/Prydwen mess hall/where-the-fuck-ever?_ ~~ _Too public_

~~ _Just after we kill a deathclaw/mirelurk queen/fog crawler/something else that’s big and mean?_ ~~ _I’m a massive jerk_

~~ _Whenever it feels right?_ ~~ _Way too vague_

_How the fuck did Nate manage to do this?!_

 

Piper felt moisture beading in the corners of her eyes as she put the paper down and opened the box it had been wrapped around, revealing its contents to be a ring decorated with a small ruby circled by a cluster of diamonds. Suddenly overwhelmed, she let the box fall onto the surface of the bed, where it landed next to Blue’s motionless arm, and turned her face to the side, one hand clasped over her mouth and nose as twin trails of tears began cascading down her face, droplets of salty water tracing their way inexorably to the corner of her lips. A muted sob escaped her throat before she regained her focus and returned her blurred gaze towards the unconscious woman lying in front of her.

“I gotta tell you, Blue,” she began, wiping her cheeks and nose with the back of one hand, “the best way to ask me to marry you would just be to _ask me to marry you._ I wouldn’t care how,” and she intertwined her fingers with Blue’s, squeezing them tightly, “because my answer would be yes however you did it. You know I love you, you big dummy – why _wouldn’t_ I say yes?” A momentary sigh left her throat as she closed her eyes and rubbed the centre of her forehead with the tips of two fingers. “Did I ever tell you that my mom used to warn me about girls like you? ‘Make sure you never fall for the dangerous ones, Piper,’ she’d always say. ‘Go for the good ones, the quiet ones, the ones without any baggage. They’ll always do right by you.’ I guess she’d be pretty disappointed in me now, huh? Sitting here by the most dangerous woman in the whole Commonwealth, crying like a baby. ‘I told you not to go for the bad girl, Piper,’ she’d say. ‘She’ll only break your heart.’ She’d be wrong, though. Travelling with you is the best thing I’ve ever done, Blue – I want to do it forever.” She gently removed the ring from the box and slipped it onto her finger. It was a little loose, she thought, but it wasn’t like that couldn’t be fixed later. “So yes, I’ll marry you… but I’m still going to give you a piece of my mind when you wake up anyway. You owe me at least a smile for this.” She chuckled despite herself and put the ring back in the box, before snapping the little container closed and tucking it into her pocket. Standing up, she bent down and planted a kiss on Blue’s forehead delicately, before she tugged reflexively at the lower edge of her coat to ease out any creases and adjusted the position of her hat. “Sleep well, honey. I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise. I love you.” She clung to the other woman’s hand for a moment before laying it gently back on the bed, turning around and walking across the room towards Knight-Captain Cade. “I’m all done,” she said. “Take care of her, okay? Let me know when you bring her round.” 

“You’ll be the first person I tell,” Cade assured her. “It goes completely against protocol, but I’m sure Elder Maxson won’t mind this once. He can debrief the Sentinel when I deem her good and ready to be debriefed, and not a moment sooner.”

“Thank you,” Piper said, before she impulsively embraced the captain, much to his apparent surprise. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Wright,” Cade said. “Now go and get some sleep. Doctor’s orders. I believe you know the way to Sentinel Adams’ private quarters?”

Piper nodded, feeling fatigue finally begin chewing at her bones. “Yes, I know where they are,” she said, weariness edging her words. “Guess I need the rest.” 

“Yes, you do,” Cade said, approvingly. “Good night, miss.”

It only took Piper a few minutes to reach Blue’s quarters, but it felt like a marathon. After she had tapped in the room’s access code and closed the hatch behind her, she stripped down to her underwear and crawled under the thin blanket and sheets of the spartan bed, gratefully closing her eyes and feeling the world melt away.

_Good night, Blue._


	12. Knowledge Is Power

Rachel dreamed.

She dreamed of home, of family, of going out dancing at the weekend, of quiet evenings and of lazy Sundays where she didn’t get out of bed until past noon, the things she’d dreamed about almost every night since she had stumbled out of the hollow tomb of Vault 111 into a world she didn’t recognise anymore.

She used to dream of those first few hours of sitting in the ruins of her old house with a loaded pistol in one hand and an empty bottle of whiskey in the other, only a couple of moments away from putting the weapon to her temple and pulling the trigger because the pain and guilt of simply being alive when Nate was not had been almost too much to bear. The only thing that had stopped her ending her own life with one quick twitch of her forefinger had been the faint hope of finding her son somewhere in the insanity of the world she had been trapped in.

She used to dream of being reunited with Shaun and raising him to be like his father – a strong, confident, loving, hilarious man who seemingly knew her every thought and tried every day to be a better person, the person he thought she deserved. She used to dream of being the mother she had always expected to be one day – the caring, compassionate woman who would take care of her child in every way possible, from teaching him to walk, to mending skinned knees, to comforting him when he came home from school after a hard day, to offering a shoulder to cry on after a difficult break-up. She used to dream of seeing her boy graduate from college, get a job, marry a pretty girl and start a family of his own. She used to dream of holding her newborn grandchildren in her arms and knowing she would leave a legacy behind.

She used to dream of feeling like she belonged somewhere. 

She still dreamed, of course, but the big difference between her first freezing night alone in the ruins of Sanctuary and today was that, at some point she couldn’t quite remember, those dreams had stopped looking back at her past with Nate and Shaun, and had begun looking forward to her future with Piper and Nat. Now she dreamed of settling down and growing old with the woman she had fallen so deeply in love with that she couldn’t imagine a life without her. Now she dreamed of seeing Nat grow up and start complaining about how boys wouldn’t leave her alone. Now she dreamed of how she was happy again. Now she dreamed that she had found the place where she belonged, the place she never wanted to leave.

At this particular moment, however, she dreamed because she seemingly had nowhere else to go. Her world was inky darkness punctuated by bright, gaudy flashes of memory…

… which she suddenly found herself torn out of as her eyelids flickered open. She blinked twice in quick succession, the bright, sterile light of her surroundings almost searing her tired eyes shut again. When they had adjusted a little, she turned her head to try to discover where she was, and saw Knight-Captain Cade standing to her left, withdrawing a needle from her arm.

“Where am I?” she said, her lips so slack and unresponsive that the words almost turned into one long indistinguishable sound.

Cade smiled. “You’re in the medical bay of the _Prydwen._ I felt you were well enough to be woken, so I gave you a mild stimulant to bring you round.”

“Have to… see Piper,” Rachel mumbled, her mouth still not cooperating fully. She sat up, intent on leaving her bed and striding away, but instead her head became filled with a piercing ringing, making her clutch at her temples to try to tear it out. Cade simply put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back down gently so that she was lying flat again, the pain in her skull fading to a dull ache behind her eyes. She moaned softly for a moment before she bit her lip and forced herself to ignore it.

“You’re going nowhere until I say you can,” Cade said sternly. “There are many things you need to recover from – you’re lucky you didn’t suffer massive head trauma from being hit by a fully-grown deathclaw, for a start. Your brain needs time to recuperate.” He paused and gestured to her chest, where she could see three long lines of fresh train-track marks. “And those stitches will need time to help stop you from spilling your guts all over my floor. Do you know how long it takes to clean up that much mess? A long time, believe me. I’ve had to do it more times than I’d ever have liked. Now,” and he gestured towards the doorway, “I believe there’s someone here who would like to speak with you.”

Rachel shifted her unfocused gaze in the direction Cade was indicating, and then she saw Piper leaning against the doorway, raising a single slender hand and smiling in a muted greeting. “Hey, Blue,” she said in a slightly hoarse voice. “What’s shakin’?” Then she looked at Cade as if she was asking for his permission to approach her, to which he responded with a brief nod before he turned away and retreated to a respectful distance, busying himself with some blood samples and paperwork. Once he had, Piper walked over to the chair by the side of her bed and sat down after kissing her gently on the forehead. “I missed you, you know,” she said in an uncharacteristically soft tone. “For a while there I didn’t think you were going to get out of that operating theatre alive.”

“I thought you knew me better than that by now,” Rachel replied, a hint of a smile ghosting across her face. “I wouldn’t leave without bugging you at least once.”

“Is that a guarantee I hear?” Piper pondered, with a smile of her own. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She paused for a moment, squeezing Rachel’s hand gently. “How are you feeling?”

“In a word? Sore,” Rachel said. “I haven’t had this many stitches in me since before the war.”

“What happened?” Piper asked, intrigued.

“I was in a car accident before I had Shaun,” Rachel explained. “Nate and I were out driving one day and some jerk-off who wasn’t looking where he was going hit us at about sixty miles an hour. I broke my hip in three places, fractured my collarbone, and there were so many scrapes on my arms and face that I looked like I’d lost a fight with a lawnmower – my doctor told me I was lucky to be alive. I had to have physiotherapy for months while my leg healed.”

“You’re lucky to be alive now,” Piper said, and squeezed her hand a little tighter. “Don’t make a habit of this, you hear me? Promise me you won’t be that dumb again.”

“I wish I could,” Rachel began, “but you know me, I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

Piper drew back, raising an eyebrow. “Is that so? Is that why you couldn’t give me this?” She slid her hand into the outer pocket of her coat and pulled out a small box. Rachel recognised it instantly and draped her hands over her face with a groan.

“Oh God… this is not the way I wanted this to happen,” she said, embarrassment lingering thickly in her words.

“Maybe you should have tried a moonlight boat ride instead?” Piper suggested with a brief smile. “Or would that have been too much of a cliche?”

“Cade gave you my notes too?”

“He was trying to make me feel better, I guess,” Piper said, shrugging. “I don’t think he really knew what was on that piece of paper. Your secret’s safe with me.” She tapped the side of her nose conspiratorially. “I’ll never tell.”

“Good,” Rachel replied, pursing her lips. “I do have a certain image to maintain, after all.”

“You do, don’t you?” Piper said, resting her chin on the palm of one hand. “Could you explain something to me, though? Why were you making such a big deal out of this? I mean, it’s just a question. People ask questions every day – I even do it for a living! Why was this one so different?”

“Because it was, all right?” Rachel snapped, irritated, before she took a second to compose herself and then resumed speaking. “Sorry. It was a big deal because I’ve never done this before and I wanted it to be perfect. I mean, at first I thought it was difficult being the one getting proposed to, and then I started thinking about what Nate must have been feeling before he asked me to marry him, and it suddenly seemed like a much, much bigger deal than I thought it was. I was thinking about where and how I could do it, how you’d probably react in every single possible scenario. I just –”

Rachel’s voice was stilled as Piper put her forefinger in the centre of her lips. “Sweetie, enough,” she said in an admonishing tone. “Haven’t you worked it out yet? You should never try to out-bullshit a bullshit artist, and I’m the Commonwealth’s biggest bullshitter.” She drew her fingers back and closed them around Rachel’s hand again. “So you want to tell me the truth, or am I going to have to break out the old detective hat so I can find out eventually anyway?”

“Fine,” Rachel said. “The real reason why I spent so much time putting off asking you was because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?” Piper repeated, incredulous. “Of what? Of little old me? I’m not that intimidating, am I?”

“No, Piper, I’m not afraid of _you_. I’m afraid of what you _represent_.”

“Which is?”

“Love.” Rachel shrugged. “If I asked you to marry me, that would mean officially admitting I love you, and that scares me, because everything I’ve ever loved, I’ve lost. I lost my husband, my home, my son, my whole life… I don’t want to lose you too.”

“You’ll never lose me, Blue,” Piper told her. “I promise. I made my decision while you were sleeping, and I’m sticking to it.”

“Is that –”

“It is,” Piper interrupted, “but I want you to do this properly before I say it out loud.” She handed Rachel the ring, a little twinge of amusement at the corner of her lips. “You wanted to do it when it felt right, didn’t you? It feels right to me, so I say go for it.”

“Okay,” Rachel said, suddenly feeling a yawning maw opening in her guts, “but don’t blame me if this comes out all weird and awkward because I wasn’t prepared.”

“After all that improv preaching you did on the island? I don’t think you’ll have a problem,” Piper told her. “How did you manage that, by the way?”

“My dad was a minister,” Rachel explained, shrugging matter-of-factly. “Guess I inherited more from him than I thought. Can I carry on now?”

“Be my guest,” Piper said, gesturing with her hand as if she was directing Rachel towards a stage. “The floor is yours.”

“You’re too kind,” Rachel replied, before she let out a long exhalation of breath. “Piper Wright… it’s only been two years since I met you, but in those two years you showed me how there’s still good in this world. Even when you were yelling at the gates outside Diamond City I could see something special in you –”

“Wait, are you going to tell me it was love at first sight?” Piper interrupted again. “Blue, that is _such_ a bad opening line.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, honey,” Rachel said, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you were cute, sure, but it wasn’t love at first sight. The first time I knew I loved you was… I think it was after we’d taken down a deathclaw and I’d made us some steaks out of the meat. You were eating and talking about what a great story you’d get out of it, and I remember thinking that was what I wanted to wake up to every morning - so I found the ring and I tried to find the perfect time to give it to you.” She smiled ruefully. “Guess that didn’t work out quite how I’d planned, huh?”

“Not really,” Piper agreed, “but you’ve got the chance now.”

“Not if you keep sidetracking me,” Rachel said, taking her turn to put her finger to Piper’s lips. “Might as well do this the direct way, then, I guess. Piper Wright… will you marry me?”

Tears began beading at the corners of Piper’s eyes despite herself. “Of course I will, Blue. Why wouldn’t I?”

Rachel felt a massive weight lifting off her shoulders, the tightness in her chest vanishing in an instant, and she shifted herself into a sitting position as quickly as she could. She ignored the sudden twinges in her muscles and the protestations of the stitches embedded in her chest as she took Piper’s cheeks in her hands and kissed her deeply, relief and joy bleeding into her lips’ movement against Piper’s own. Then she took the ring from its box and gently slipped it onto Piper’s finger, feeling a twinge of regret that it wasn’t the right size, before kissing her again briefly. “Hopefully that wasn’t too shitty a proposal for you?” she said as their mouths parted.

“If I had to judge it,” Piper began, running her fingers through Rachel’s messy hair, “I’d say… maybe six out of ten? Room for improvement, for sure.”

“If that’s your attitude, I take it back,” Rachel laughed. “Maybe I’ll ask Cait instead? I always did have a thing for redheads.”

Piper batted at Rachel’s arm with the back of her fingers. “Don’t you start that with me, you asshole,” she said, a crooked smile nevertheless flitting across her face for a moment. “Guess I’d better visit Fallon’s and see if I can find a wedding dress, hadn’t I?”


	13. Disclosure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel and Piper form a strategy to save Far Harbor.

It had taken around a week for Knight-Captain Cade to finally allow Elder Maxson access to the medical bay. He had waved off Maxson’s vehement objections by telling him that she had needed those days to rest and recuperate on her own – which _was_ partially true, she supposed, although Cade had conveniently left out the part where he had woken her up and allowed Piper to see her, only a day or so after bringing her out of the induced coma he’d put her in following her surgery. Now the Elder was here with her, though, and he was clearly eager to begin dissecting any information she could give him.

“It’s worse than we thought, Elder,” she began. “The Children of Atom don’t want to just conquer the island; High Confessor Tektus wants to spread the word of Atom across the whole of the Commonwealth, maybe even the entire country. He won’t give up unless we stop him: right now he’s creating an army by using radiation to convert his own followers into feral ghouls. He had his people kidnap settlers and the citizens of Far Harbor and take them to his base, so they could be sacrifices for his cause. He was close to turning at least a couple of his followers when Piper and I arrived at the _Nucleus –_ he’s probably succeeded with more by now.” 

“He’s deliberately turning humans into ghouls?” Maxson looked utterly horrified by the mere concept. “How?”

“Damaged fusion batteries get implanted directly into the chest cavity of a volunteer and then pumped full of the blood from a glowing one,” Rachel explained. “I don’t know _why_ it works, but I know it works. I’ve seen it myself.” 

“People would _volunteer_ to become one of those things?” Maxson’s disgust and horror hung thickly off his words.

“This branch of the Children of Atom believes ghouls are… sacred, I guess. They think becoming one of them would be a blessing.” She paused, deciding to cut to the chase. “Far Harbor needs our help, sir. I left a group of Children of Atom defectors with them to help defend the town, but I don’t know how long they can hold out against Tektus and his loyalists. Let me take a detachment of knights back to the island so I can at least shore up their defences. They deserve our help – if Tektus’s followers take that dock, there’s nothing left to stop them from arriving in the Commonwealth, and if they arrive in the Commonwealth, a lot of innocent people are going to die. We have to stop them, sir. We have to.”

Maxson scowled. “Without any reinforcements due from the Citadel, we’re a little overstretched,” he said in a pained tone, “but I can spare a small detachment of knights for this operation. You have full discretion to recruit whomever you choose.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rachel replied, “but there’s something else you should know: High Confessor Tektus is… well, he’s a synth, sir. I left him in charge of the church before I came back to the mainland six months ago because it was helping to keep the peace on the island. I thought if he could be contained in the _Nucleus,_ he could be ignored, but he’s become… defective somehow. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he needs to be dealt with. If I can get close to him, I’ll put him down myself.”

“See that you do, Sentinel,” Maxson said, jabbing a finger at her sharply. “I understand you thought you were doing the right thing, but leaving a synth alive in that kind of position is utterly unacceptable. I expect you to correct that mistake without hesitation. I’ve cut you a lot of slack in the past regarding synths, but this time I will not tolerate any disobedience whatsoever. There’s too much at stake for you to let sentiment cloud your judgement. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, Elder,” Rachel said. “That synth is as good as dead.”

“Excellent,” Maxson said, before he gestured to the door. “I’ll be on the bridge, should you need to discuss this further – as soon as you’ve been cleared for duty, that is.” He brought his clenched fist to his chest in a smart salute. “Ad victoriam, sister.”

“Ad victoriam, sir,” Rachel repeated, returning the salute with a bandaged hand. When Maxson had departed the room, Cade returned to her bedside, holding out a stimpak. Confused, Rachel took it and held it up.

“Wait,” she began, “I thought you didn’t believe in using these?”

Cade shrugged. “Normally I don’t, but I can see the Elder won’t want to wait for long. This is the first and only time I’m going to advise that you take one of these outside of a combat zone,” he said flatly. “If you start feeling any ill effects, I want you back here as soon as possible. Is that clear?”

“Understood, sir,” Rachel said, before she reversed her grip on the stimpak and jammed its short, stubby needle into her arm. Depressing the plunger with her thumb, she felt its effects quickly flooding throughout her body, the persistent aching of the still-sore scars left by the stitches in her torso lessening and then vanishing completely in the blink of an eye. No matter how many times she experienced that feeling it never ceased to be almost exhilarating, in its own way. When the stimpak’s initial rush had subsided, she flexed the fingers of her right hand and rotated it at the wrist a few times just to make sure it was in proper working order. Swinging her legs off the bed, she eased herself down onto the floor, feeling her feet protest for a moment as they took her weight and fearing that her knees might fold out from under her. It only took a couple of seconds for that fear to be proven wrong, but she still found herself clinging to the edge of the bed as a precaution.

When she was satisfied she could stand properly, she turned to Cade again and waved a hand up and down her smock-clad body. “Do you have anything I can change into, please? I don’t really want to go back to my quarters wearing nothing but this thing.”

Without looking up from the Petri dish on his work-surface, Cade pointed to the chair in the corner of the room, which had her freshly-cleaned uniform and cap folded over the top of it. “Draw the curtain and you can change behind it,” he said almost absently. “And don’t take this the wrong way, Sentinel, but I really hope we don’t see each other again for quite a while after this.”

Rachel laughed. “Don’t worry, Doc, I think we’re in full agreement there…”

 

* * *

 

Once she’d suited up and made her way back to her private quarters, Rachel found Piper waiting for her behind the door. She didn’t have time to say anything before the smaller woman threw her arms around her and held on as if she was afraid to let go. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered. “I thought you’d never get out of there.”

“I almost didn’t,” Rachel replied. “Getting three square meals a day while doing absolutely nothing was a pretty sweet deal, after all – would _you_ want to give that up?”

“I suppose not,” Piper said, laying her head against Rachel’s shoulder for a moment before returning her gaze to her fiancee’s face, dread crossing her face like a pitch-black cloud. “I guess this means you have to go back out there now, then, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Rachel said regretfully. “I told Elder Maxson about what happened on the island, and I asked him to let me lead a task-force back there so we can help Far Harbor defend itself against Tektus. You know it’s the right thing to do, don’t you?”

“I know, but… can’t it be somebody else?” Piper asked, almost beseechingly. “I just got you back, Blue. Why does it have to be you?”

“You know why,” Rachel told her. “I have a duty to protect the Commonwealth, and I have a duty to protect those Children of Atom too. I can’t ignore that – and besides, I helped put that broken synth in charge of the _Nucleus_ in the first place _._ I need to fix that mistake.”

“But why _you?_ Can’t you send someone in your place? Jesus Christ, Blue, you barely came back alive the first time! Why do you have to go right back out there?!”

“Because I’m a Sentinel of the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Emissary of the Mother of the Fog,” Rachel said. “Nobody else can say they’re both of those things. I have to go. I have to.”

Piper nodded, a resigned look on her face, before she reached up and trailed her fingers down Rachel’s cheek. “I know. I know you do,” she said softly, drawing herself closer so that she could kiss Rachel briefly, leaving the faint tang of Nuka-Cola behind on her tongue, “and I know arguing with you won’t change your mind, so I’ll save the yelling at you for when we get back home.”

“We?”

“You didn’t think I was going to let you leave without me, did you?” Piper said, with a shrug. “I’m not letting anything happen to my future wife – you’re not getting off the hook that easily, you asshole.”

“Okay, I deserved that,” Rachel replied, a little ruefully, before she gestured to the dormant suit of power armour standing hunchbacked in the corner of the room. “I’m going to go pick my squad for this mission. You want to tag along and help me make a shortlist?”

“Sure,” Piper replied, pursing her lips and rolling her eyes. “Why not?"

 

* * *

 

It had taken a while to assemble her strike team, but Rachel was satisfied she had made the right choices: along with Piper, she had recruited Knight-Captain Larsen, Knights Lucia and Rhys (who she had had specifically airlifted from the Cambridge police station in order to help him get used to being on field assignments again after so long away from the front lines), Paladin Brandis, and a fire team of half a dozen other distinguished knights, all armed with heavy weapons. She hoped they would not be necessary, but experience had taught her that it was better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them. In addition, she had brought along a small group of Children of Atom, including Zealots Ware and Theil, as well as Sister Emily, who had flat-out refused to let the Emissary out of her sight now that she was able to walk again. Rachel had once again found herself admiring the younger woman’s ironclad dedication to her faith, even if she didn’t share it, and hoped that that dedication would help her out in this little crusade.

After a small fleet of vertibirds had relayed Rachel’s team to the island, they had alighted in Far Harbor where the combination of renegade Children and Far Harbor citizens had reorganised as best they could, rigging up fresh barricades and fortifications from whatever they had been able to scrounge from the piles of wreckage scattered across the dock. When Captain Avery saw Rachel’s little war-band, though, she had almost collapsed from the shock. “Never thought I’d see you again, mainlander,” she said after she had taken a moment to process the sight of multiple power-armoured soldiers flanked by Rachel’s devoted followers, who were carrying crates of fresh ammunition and laser rifles. “Why’d you come back?”

“I couldn’t leave you to face Tektus alone,” Rachel replied, shrugging for a moment before she sheepishly realised her armour wouldn’t really translate that movement well. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t come sooner. How have you been holding up?”

“Better than expected,” Avery said. “There’s been no serious attack yet – just a few skirmish parties – but there’s no telling when the rad-eaters’ll be back. I think they’re just trying to pick us off one by one instead of having the balls to take us on directly. Fucking cowards, all of them.” A moment after she had spoken, though, she noticed Sister Emily standing beside Rachel and quickly added “No offence, kid.”

Sister Emily smiled, masking any indignation she might be feeling. “None taken, Captain,” she said. “Those people don’t follow Atom’s true path. We do. His blessings are with us, I know it.”

Avery looked unconvinced, but didn’t argue the point, instead ushering Rachel’s reinforcements inside the town's gates and helping them unbox the new weapons so that they could be distributed amongst the surviving townsfolk and their new allies.

For a moment, Rachel thought this crazy strategy might work, but it was an uncertain thought, and one which she was not able to hold onto. She hoped she would find it again soon enough.

* * *

A few hours was all it had taken for Rachel’s task-force to help reinforce the harbour’s defences and set up a defence perimeter studded with heavy firepower, effectively turning the dock into the closest thing to a fortress that it could be. Now Piper and Rachel were resting in the private quarters inside the ruins of The Last Plank, which all of the resident Children had insisted they take, despite her protests (and those of her soldiers), and were getting ready to bed down for the night, even as they heard the rumble of storm clouds on the horizon.

“So do you think this counts as our honeymoon?” Piper asked as they lay facing each other. “If it does, I gotta say I’m disappointed. I wanted a trip to Nuka-World!”

Rachel laughed. “Oh, we’ll take that trip, babe, don’t worry about that. You can call this a… work assignment, I guess. Hopefully we can get this out of the way and go on that vacation as soon as possible. Believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve made out the whole way through the World of Refreshment ride – hearing people yelling at you to knock it off and get a room never gets old.” She brushed her fingers against Piper’s cheek. “I can’t wait to take you there and call you my wife.”

“Neither can I, Blue,” Piper replied. “Still gonna yell at you before that, though…”


End file.
